Full Text

News

Berkeley became the first California city to adopt into law mandatory inspection of gas heaters in rental units. Tonight it will consider an amendment to charge property owners for the administrative costs of the new ordinance.

The gas appliance inspection ordinance was adopted in principle Nov. 21, without setting fees for the inspections. Tonight the City Council will consider charging rental-property owners $12 per unit to pay the estimated $50,000 it will cost to process the required documentation. The council is also considering modifying a requirement to inspect units every three years, reducing the frequency of inspections and also waiving fees for landlords who install carbon monoxide detectors.

If the amendment is approved tonight, landlords who install detectors will not pay any administrative fees and will only be required to have their gas appliances inspected every five years, according to the staff report.

The mode of inspection is up to the property owner. Interim Director of Housing Stephen Barton said landlords will be able to hire private contractors to carry out the inspection, which may cost as much as $75 per hour, or they can take advantage of a free inspection service offered by PG & E.

Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas that is produced when any fuel is incompletely burned. There are about 200 carbon monoxide deaths each year in the United States from poisoning associated with home fuel-burning heating equipment, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Some property owners said the new ordinance will be costly and at best provide tenants with a false sense of security because it is impossible to predict when gas appliances will malfunction.

Property manager Primo Facchinni said the best way to protect tenants is to install carbon monoxide detectors and require property owners to certify their installation every year when they pay registration fee to the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board.

“You can have the inspector come out and tell you everything is all right and as soon as he leaves something can go wrong,” he said. “This law doesn’t do what it sets out to do, save lives.”

Dr. Michael Apte, who works at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, will make a presentation to the City Council at tonight’s meeting about the benefits of inspection programs as well as ways to encourage the installation of carbon monoxide detectors.

Mayor Shirley Dean said she isn’t sure if carbon monoxide detectors are enough. “My first concern is safety, and I intend to listen very carefully to what Dr. Apte has to say and expect to rely on his input.”

Facchinni said there are other problems with inspections including gaining access to rental units. “If you have 14 units, you have 14 problems,” he said. “You have to coordinate the inspections with tenants’ schedules and people are busy and there’s always complications.”

He said the cost of the inspections could become punitive if PG & E stops offering the free inspections. “PG & E representatives have told me there’s no guarantee they will continue these inspections,” Facchinni said.

Barton also said he is concerned about PG & E’s ability to continue to offer the free inspections. The utility’s solvency has been in question and electricity suppliers are currently under federal orders to sell electricity to California utilities despite their alleged inability to pay.

But PG & E spokesperson Staci Homrig said PG & E will continue to offer the free inspections. “We’ve offered the service for a number of years now and we’ll continue to offer that service as long as customers call and schedule in advance.”

The inspection ordinance was authored by Councilmember Maudelle Shirek after the November 1999 carbon monoxide death of Indian immigrant Chanti Jyotsna Devi Prattipati, 17. Prattipati died in an apartment at 2020 Bancroft Way when an air vent became clogged as a result of roof repairs. The landlord, Lakireddy Bali Reddy was not charged with her death, which was ruled accidental.

Tuesday, Jan. 23

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips.

Call Wade, 531-8664

PSR’s annual Earl Lectures

9 a.m. - 10 p.m.

First Congregational Church of Berkeley

2345 Channing Way

Celebrating their 100th anniversary of lectures, this year will focus on Christian mission in a pluralistic age. This year there are 28 workshops and three panels of national religious leaders and scholars. Free

Call 849-8274

Elderly mental illness

1:30 - 3 p.m.

Alta Bates Summit Medical Center

Herrick Campus, CC Conference Room

2001 Dwight Way

Dr. Robert Dolgoff, Chief Psychiatrist at the Berkeley Therapy Institute will discuss the course of action to be taken when the best efforts of medical professionals no longer helps older folks with mental illnesses.

Call 869-6737

Blood pressure for seniors

9:30 - 11:30 a.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

With Alice Meyers.

Call 644-6107

Costs of illness

1 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

Attorney Walter Rosen will discuss how to protect you home and savings from the financial effects of catastrophic illness.

Call 644-6107

Wednesday, Jan. 24

Free acting & storytelling classes for seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Oakland

Call 444-4755 or visit

www.stagebridge.org

Thursday, Jan. 25

Spirits in the Time of AIDS

6 - 8 p.m.

Pro Arts Gallery

461 Ninth St.

Oakland

Pro Arts reception for the opening of their new exhibition seeking to expand the understanding of HIV and AIDS and the people who are affected by them.

Call 763-9425

Free “Quit Smoking” Class

5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

South Berkeley Senior Center

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees.

Orquesta D’Soul, a San Francisco based band, is hosting this benefit featuring the musical talents of local bay area women in salsa.

$8 in advance, $10 at the door

Call 849-2568 or visit www.lapena.org

Conversations in Commedia

7:30 p.m.

La Pena Cultural Center

3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince)

Mime Troupe vet and St. Stupid’s Day creator, Ed Holmes, and 84-year-old Bari Rolfe, a mime for over 30 years, give dialogues on satire.

$6 - $8

Call 849-2568

West Berkeley Project Area

Commission

7 p.m.

West Berkeley Senior Center

1900 Sixth St.

Discussions will include review of the initial environmental study and recommendations on a request to establish a public market. Also, consideration of a petition requesting that diagonal parking and parking meters not be installed on Fifth St.

Take the Terror Out

of Talking

12:10 - 1:10 p.m.

Department of Health Services

2151 Berkeley Way

State Health Toastmasters Club is hosting an open house to celebrate Toastmasters International Week and to kick-off the start of “Speechcraft,” a six-session workshop to help participants overcome nervousness and learn basic public speaking skills. Call 649-7750

Friday, Jan. 26

Strong Women - Writers &

Heroes of Literature

1 - 3 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.

Call 549-2970

“The Aftermath of the

National Election”

11:45 a.m. luncheon

12:30 p.m. speaker

Berkeley City Club

2315 Durant Ave.

Susan Rasky, senior lecturer at the graduate school of journalism at UC Berkeley will speak.

$11 - $12.25 with luncheon, $1 with coffee, students free

848-3533

Stagebridge free acting & storytelling classes for seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Call 444-4755 or visit

www.stagebridge.org

Crisis in Colombia

7 p.m.

Berkeley UU Fellowship Hall

1924 Cedar (at Bonita)

As part of their “war on drugs,” the Colombian government is set to implement Plan Colombia, aided by military hardware and training from the U.S. Peter Dale Scott, UC Berkeley professor and Daniel de la Pava, of the Colombia Support Network will, will discuss the U.S. role in perpetuating the violence and how to organize to help.

$5 - $10 donation requested

Call 704-9608

Yiddish Conversation

1 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

With Allen Stross

Call 644-6107

Saturday, Jan. 27

Clori, Tirsi & e Fileno

8 p.m.

Crowden School

1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento)

Teatro Bacchino, the Bay Area’s Baroque Opera company, will be performing Handel’s story of jealousy in love. Pre-concert talk 45 minutes before the performance.

$15 - $20

Call 658-3382

Cuddly, Soft, Furry Things

& Friends

10 - 10:50 a.m. & 11:10 a.m. - Noon

Lawrence Hall of Science

UC Berkeley

A special workshop for two - three year-olds to meet, pet, and feed rabbits, doves, and snakes.

$22 - $25, $10 for additional family members, registration required

Call 642-5134

Book Publishing Seminar

10 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Regent Press

6020-A Adeline St.

Mark Weiman presents an overview of the business of book publishing oriented towards the author considering self-publication. Call 547-7602 or e-mail: regent@sirius.com

Learn about new employment opportunities in travel in the 21st century. Class will include a look at salaries, travel benefits, necessary education and preparation required. Bring payment by check to the class.

$5.50 for California residents

Call Marty de Souto, 981-2931

Intuitive Healing

10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

1502 Tenth St.

Marcia Emery, Ph.D., will discuss the deeper meaning of illness, the way to tune into any body part to heal it and your intuitive X-ray or body scan ability.

$85

Call 526-5510

Sunday, Jan. 28

Clori, Tirsi & e Fileno

7 p.m.

Crowden School

1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento)

Teatro Bacchino, the Bay Area’s Baroque Opera company, will be performing Handel’s story of jealousy in love. Pre-concert talk 45 minutes before the performance.

$15 - $20

Call 658-3382

Reimagining Pacific Cities

6 - 8:30 p.m.

New Pacific Studio

1523 Hearst Ave.

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.

$10 per meeting

Call 849-0217

Finns in Berkeley and Co-op Beginnings

3 - 5 p.m.

Berkeley Historical Society

1931 Center St.

A panel discussion on Finnish and Co-op history and on the Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley.

$10 donation

Call 848-0181

Mediterranean Plant Life

3:30 p.m.

UC Botanical Garden

200 Centennial Drive

Peter Dallman, author of “Plant Life in the Mediterranean Regions of the World,” will motivate attendees to look closely at California native plants and experiment with dramatic and drought-tolerant species in their own gardens.

In 1975, Judge James Meredith approved a consent decree that attempted to address residence-based racial imbalance in St. Louis schools and to prevent lengthy and angry litigation. That same year my family moved to Brentwood a small suburb of St. Louis. I was five years old.

John Ashcroft was then Missouri’s Assistant Attorney General. In 1976 he would become Missouri’s Attorney General, a position he would hold until 1985, the year I left the state.

Without realizing it at the time, woven through my childhood years in Missouri would be the story of St. Louis’ community struggle to end school segregation and the efforts of John Ashcroft, acting as the agent of the State, to derail the process.

During our residence in Missouri, my parents would be part of ad hoc committees, school boards, and interdistrict coordinating councils to support voluntary metropolitan-wide desegregation.

The voluntary desegregation plan was to involve genuine student and parent choice. It promised a commitment to improve the quality of all city schools, while holding the districts accountable for rectifying previous and ongoing practices that had the effect of discrimination against African American students based on race.

The plan was not perfect, but it was a genuine attempt to avoid the white flight that was taking place in cities such as Detroit where mandatory intradistrict remedies were imposed.

In April of 1982, Brentwood School district joined the volunteer desegregation program.

That following September, a handful of new students stumbled off a school bus and entered my Junior High School.

These were students standing up to make real, educational opportunities which had been promised them more than twenty-five years before in the landmark Supreme Court ruling Brown vs. the Board of Education.

My classmates’ names will not be recorded in any history books, but the story of the struggle for desegregation of the St. Louis schools takes on new meaning with the nomination of John Ashcroft as Attorney General of the United States.

Close to a half century after Brown, it is unfathomable to me that we could reward a man whom I personally witnessed making his political career stonewalling desegregation in the Missouri schools by giving him the job of enforcing the civil rights laws of this land.

As I listen to the first days of John Ashcroft’s confirmation hearings, politicians and scholars are telling me that John Ashcroft is a man of integrity and intelligence.

None of these pontificators know John Ashcroft the way I knew John Ashcroft, through the eyes of a schoolchild. As John Ashcroft, himself struggles to distance himself from the very actions, which brought him to political power; I cannot forget our joint past.

I never met Missouri Attorney General John Ashcroft in person, but his specter was a frequent uninvited guest at my family’s many dinner-table debates.

Ashcroft failed to comply with a court order, filed another court appeal, or used his office as a bully pulpit to rally community fears about voluntary desegregation being an “outrage against human decency.”

His words and actions invaded my home; scorched my parents’ tongues, and sent them off into hours of animated resistance to his beliefs about race, religion, and community.

I learned then that Ashcroft would use tactics of division and dogmatically drive a wedge of fear into a community if it served a strategic purpose aligned with his own narrow moral code.

Ashcroft seemed to view promoting “community safety” as a mainstay of his civic duties. In his mind, this meant using his office to fight desegregation in the same way he would wage a war on drugs.

Though the friendships that I was forming across lines of race, class, and geography were not illegal, they violated Ashcroft’s social code.

Remembering those days, I want to ask Ashcroft, what were you so afraid of? Was it the litter of kittens shared across neighborhoods, or the stale box of valentine chocolates offered across race?

My memories are harmless. His actions were not.

Since my school days, Ashcroft has given me many reasons to oppose him as Attorney General for this country, from his extreme positions on women’s rights, civil rights, freedom of choice, hate crimes, the death penalty, gay rights, and domestic violence prevention.

However, it is for his actions from two decades ago as Attorney General of Missouri that embolden me to take pen in hand.

In a Missouri classroom, I learned how a bill became a law; in a Missouri community, I learned how the law can be manipulated in the hands of an Attorney General to benefit a few and hurt many.

Mr. Ashcroft, the children that you stepped on climbing the political ladder have grown up.

Jennifer Rakowski is the associate director of San Francisco-based Community United Against Violence.

At tonight’s City Council meeting, a public hearing will be held on the appeal of neighbors who say the permit to place 12 wireless communications antennae on the roof of the Oaks Theater will create health risks.

In July, the Zoning Adjustments Board approved the application by Nextel Communications to place the antennae on the roof of the theater, located at 1861 Solano Ave.. The appeal was filed by neighbor Kevin Sutton and other neighbors in August.

The appeal claims that it is inappropriate to place antennae so close to Thousand Oaks School given the potential for adverse health effects from long-term exposure to electromagnetic radiation emissions that are generated by the antennae. With the growing demand for cellular telephones, telecommunications companies have been increasingly eager to place the antennae in residential neighborhoods.

Tonight the council could refer the matter back to the ZAB which would then be directed to hold further public hearings, or the council could deny the appeal and approve the placement of the antennae on the theater, or schedule additional City Council hearings on the appeal.

The council unanimously approved a 45-day moratorium on all wireless communication antennae in December due to concern from residents who think the antennae should not be allowed in residential neighborhoods.

Parents of Children of African Decent

As nearly 35 percent of Berkeley High School freshmen are faltering in their studies, Parents of Children of African Descent are asking the community at large to be part of the solution.

PCAD will make a presentation to the council asking for support of a plan designed to strengthen the failing freshman through community support. The council will also be asked to assist by providing space and financial contributions.

The PCAD plan is to institute a “stone soup” concept that will encourage everybody to throw something into the pot. According to the group’s written plan, PCAD is asking parents, students, teachers, administrators and community leaders to become partners in the turnaround of underachieving students.

“We need all the sectors and individuals of our community who influence and care about our children to bring the resources and ideas they have and put them into the pot so that we can collectively nourish and educate these children.”

The 17-page plan calls for a variety of solutions including study programs, parent development and in-school mentors.

West Berkeley Public Market

The council will consider waiving operating fees for proposed West Berkeley Public Market, which is designed to provide a venue for low-income entrepreneurs.

The market will be held on the north side of University Avenue between Third and Fourth streets starting on May 28 and ending October 28.

It is being organized by the West Berkeley Neighborhood Development Corporation. Organizers say the market will be able to open on schedule if the fees are waived.

Berkeley vs. Schwartz

The council will likely approve a resolution allowing Berkeley resident Frieda Schwartz to avoid going to court by paying $36,205 for topping three redwood trees. Schwartz obtained a permit to top one tree along Tamalpais Path in 1999. However she ultimately topped four trees, three of which are partially owned by the city.

The property, located close to campus, includes five units that the ZAB said were built without permits.

The city and landlord Valiyee have wrestled a number of times over the years over code issues.

Valiyee has spent time in jail and paid fines for violations at his various properties, said Councilmember Kriss Worthington.

Worthington would not comment on the specifics of the Piedmont Avenue allegations because their veracity will be determined by the council.

Valiyee could not be reached for comment.

His appeal is based on a claim that the city has known about the five units for a decade and that the ZAB decision is simply harassment.

“The failure to recognize this fact demonstrates the bias and prejudice of the ZAB with regard to Mr. Valiyee,” Valiyee wrote in his appeal letter to the council. “The (ZAB) decision reflects the personal bias and animosity of the ZAB members against Mr. Valiyee personally and the decision represents personal animosity rather than reasoned thinking.”

Further, Valiyee said that the decision, which would result in obligating him to remove the five units, constitutes a “‘taking’ in violation of state and federal law” and that it would be an irrational act on the part of the city to destroy part of its much-needed housing stock.

A report signed by Wendy Cosin, acting planning director, argues to the contrary. “This step culminates a long history of enforcement efforts by the city,” the report says. The property owner first asked the city for a permit to build four units in the basement of the property and was denied the permit in 1981, Cosin wrote. “The property owner was issued infraction citations on five separate occasions between the period September 1990 and September 1991.”

A fifth unit was constructed without permits on the second floor, the report says. There have also been closets built under stair spaces and in hallways and electric panels installed throughout the building, all without permits, the report says.

In addition to the five allegedly illegal units, the city’s report also details other code violations, such as a steel trellis-like structure that protrudes into the front yard in violation of a 15-foot setback requirement.

The report adds that the owner was given many chances over the years to correct the violations, but has not done so.

Eric Almanza is a student who lives in one of the rooms in the building he says includes “30 to 40” rooms and apartments. Paint is chipping off the walls and doors. Floors in the hallways are soiled.

Almanza has lived there since the beginning of the school year and said, although the common bathrooms are not clean, he couldn’t complain. He says he pays $600 per month and is happy just having a roof over his head.

Berkeley High School freshmen Everton Luis Santini died Saturday at Children’s Hospital in Oakland.

The 14-year-old suffered a stroke, which stemmed from complications following a fall while he was ice skating at a rink in Berkeley Dec. 29.

In a coma for 22 days, Everton was visited by a number of teachers from Berkeley High and Willard Junior High, said his father Joseph Santini.

Everton loved drawing and the outdoors – he loved being on wheels and he loved ice skating. “At least, he injured himself doing something he loved,” Joseph Santini said.

Everton was known as a joker. “He always had tricks up his sleeve,” Santini said, adding that the jokes brought people together and helped them socialize.

He had hoped to be a volcanologist. “He was crazy about volcanoes,” Santini said.

Everton is also survived by his his mother Ivonete Maria of Sao Paulo, Brazil; brother Elton, 10, and sister Jennifer, 9, of Berkeley. Everton was buried Sunday at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Oakland. A celebration of his life will be held Jan. 24 at Newman Hall Parish, 2700 Dwight Way. There will be a wake at 6:30 p.m. and a mass at 7:30 p.m.

Contributions can be made to the Oakland Children’s Hospital Foundation at 747 52nd St. Oakland, Calif., 94609-1859

The Department of Energy and the University of California have agreed to extend the school system's contract to manage the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National laboratories through 2005.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher said today that changes have been made by the Energy Department, the university and the National Nuclear Security Administration to rectify long-standing problems. The university has improved security and counterintelligence and streamlined reporting procedures, as well as project management to protect nuclear secrets, she said. Tauscher pledged to closely monitor the implementation of the contract to make sure lab employees and their working environment is at the forefront of technological advances.

SACRAMENTO — Transmission problems aggravated California’s power crisis on Monday, as authorities warned that homes and businesses in the north of the state might go dark again Tuesday morning.

Officials at the Independent System Operator, which runs the state power grid, said rolling blackouts could be in place again between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. if substantial electricity were not found overnight.

“We’re looking everywhere for energy,” said Kellan Fluckiger, the ISO’s chief operating officer. “We’re looking under every rock and bush like we always have been.”

The electricity shortfall was predicted at 500 megawatts or enough power for half a million homes.

Problems in the system are beginning to compound, with Pacific Gas & Electric having reached, just three weeks into the year, the annual total hours it can shut off power to its interruptible contract customers, Fluckiger said.

Those customers are businesses and others that agree to accept outages during times of tight supply in exchange for lower rates. With those customers shut down for several hours daily last week and several hours Monday, PG&E has reached the annual limit of 100 hours.

Without the ability to cut interruptible customers, Fluckiger said, the system will face a deficit of 300 megawatts from that source. One megawatt is enough to power roughly 1,000 homes.

In addition, reservoirs at a key hydroelectric plant near Fresno were low on water to turn generators, transmission glitches in Oregon persisted and could take several days to fix, and offers to sell the state electricity were lower than expected. Meanwhile, power usage routinely climbs as the week progresses, Fluckiger said, which is further expected to exacerbate the problem.

Stage 3 alerts — the most severe and the prelude to rolling blackouts — were ordered to remain in effect until at least midnight Tuesday.

Even though blackouts were not necessary Monday, the transfer of power between south and north was slowed when the three major conduits were jammed at a bottleneck consisting of just two 500,000-volt lines in central California.

“The ISO is caught in the middle, caught in a system not improved in three years,” ISO spokesman Patrick Dorinson said.

Blackouts did occur briefly Sunday for as many as 75,000 customers in Northern California, but they were caused by a spike in power from Oregon, not from shortages.

Amid this backdrop, lawmakers considered several potential solutions to the crisis, including one under which the state’s two largest utilities — Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric — would donate their hydroelectric plants to the state.

In exchange, California would begin buying additional power needed for the state through long-term contracts and on the spot market, both of which have led to enormous debts for the utilities. The plan would make California one of the largest owners of hydroelectric power in the nation.

Another plan, proposed by Assemblyman Fred Keeley, would put the state in the electricity business for up to five years, buying power at low rates and selling it directly to consumers. The Assembly has already approved it. It still needs approval in the state Senate and would have to be signed by the governor.

Keeley said his plan would buy time for the state’s two largest utilities to restore their credit while lawmakers work on long-term solutions to California’s botched deregulation laws.

Consumer groups, meanwhile, gave Davis’ office more than 5,000 petition signatures from people rejecting what they called a multibillion-dollar bailout for the utilities.

“We see the cancer spreading, if you will,” said Graham Brownstein of The Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco-based group.

PG&E and SoCal Edison have been on the verge of bankruptcy for weeks. They blame their more than $10 billion in losses on California’s 1996 deregulation law, which bars them from passing skyrocketing wholesale power costs onto consumers.

The Legislature and governor last week allocated $400 million to buy power over the next several days because the utilities, whose credit ratings have been downgraded to junk bond status, can no longer find wholesalers willing to sell them power on credit. State officials hope the plan will help avoid blackouts while lawmakers work on longer-term solutions.

The state’s Department of Water Resources, the agency authorized to buy power under the emergency legislation, has spent at least $113.2 million since Thursday, including $35.2 million for Monday’s power needs, said Mike Sicilia, a spokesman for Davis’ office.

In addition, DWR spent $38 million last week under a state of emergency declared by Davis until the emergency legislation became law, Sicilia said.

In Washington, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and other Bush administration officials met to discuss the California crisis. There was no immediate word on whether Abraham will extend an emergency order by his predecessor, Bill Richardson, keeping power flowing to California despite concerns about utility solvency.

That order is due to expire at midnight Tuesday.

Also Monday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer announced the nomination of Curt Hebert, who has argued against federal involvement in the California problems, as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates wholesale power markets.

When computers, cash registers and traffic lights go dark, it’s more than just an inconvenience. It’s a public safety issue.

Business owners and law enforcement say advance notice of the rotating outages would make a difficult affair easier. But utility companies argue that security concerns and a constantly changing power situation make that kind of warning impossible.

“We don’t announce it in advance for security reasons,” said Ron Low, spokesman for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. “We don’t want burglars to know where the power’s going to be off and where security alarms are going to be down.”

A tight power supply sparked two days of rolling blackouts in the northern two-thirds of California last Wednesday and Thursday.

When the California Independent System Operator decides that such temporary blackouts are necessary, it tells the utility company to reduce its electricity consumption by a certain number of megawatts. It’s up to each utility company to decide where the outages will occur.

“Supply and demand is such a dynamic situation that we are often waiting until the last minute possible to make that decision, hoping that some additional supply will become available or conservation measures might kick in at the last minute,” ISO spokeswoman Lorie O’Donley said.

“We’re managing the grid. ... If we’ve got too much demand and we need to offload 500 megawatts, we call them and give them that number. They select the blocks and make that decision.”

Both PG&E and Southern California Edison say they have plans in place as to whose power goes out next, but neither company releases that information to the public. They also say they get no advance warning from the ISO and when it calls, they usually have less than a half-hour to begin shutting customers down.

Both say they warn local Offices of Emergency Services, which, in turn, notify police and fire departments that an outage is imminent.

But Lucien Canton, director of San Francisco’s Office of Emergency Services, says he usually finds out about outages when the public does – after the lights go out.

“If you could tell me a half-hour or an hour in advance, that would be wonderful,” Canton said, adding that he knows which block is up next for an outage, but he doesn’t know specifically where that block is or when the power there will be shut off. “PG&E has maintained this is proprietary data and they withhold it for security reasons.”

Canton said his office has repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, pressed the utility to provide earlier warning.

The system runs a bit more smoothly in Stanislaus County where that region’s PG&E representative has a good working relationship with the OES and notifies them about an hour before an outage.

“If PG&E calls us and says Block 3’s going out, we can look at a map and see which area of the county is going to be impacted,” said Virginia Madueno with Stanislaus County’s OES. She immediately notifies hospitals, large business owners, police and fire departments. “We’re definitely at an advantage. In San Joaquin County, they don’t have any advance notice. I find that very, very surprising.”

San Francisco Police spokesman Sherman Ackerson says knowing about an outage an hour or so in advance would make a big difference.

“Usually there’s so little advance warning that by the time we dispatch officers the blackout happened,” he said. “Traffic signals are the biggest problem. ... We obviously want advance warning. The more advance notice we get the better off we are.”

PG&E maintains it notifies local Offices of Emergency Management before blackouts and if law enforcement doesn’t get proper notification, it may be a lack of communication elsewhere.

“The amount of notice depends on the ISO,” Low said. “It’s an hour by hour, minute by minute situation.”

Not all utilities are keeping their lips locked. Officials at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District on Monday changed their notification policy. Starting Tuesday, the utility will post on its Web site the next neighborhoods in line for blackouts.

SMUD spokesman Gregg Fishman said customers complained that the outages came without warning.

“The idea is giving advance notice so people can plan their lives. There are health situations that could be affected by power loss and that outweighs the possible loss of security,” said Fishman, who added that police already canvas areas affected by blackouts.

The information will not be entirely accurate but will give customers a better idea about the likelihood they will be without power, Fishman said.

California Steel Industries Inc. in Fontana has been forced to shut down six times since Jan. 1, said spokeswoman Kyle Schulty. In 1986, the company began receiving discounted electricity in exchange for volunteering to be at the top of the list if voluntary outages became necessary. They also agreed to receive just 30 minutes notice of a power interruption — and that’s exactly what they’ve gotten.

“You can’t just turn a steel plant on and off. ... Anything would be better than a half hour,” Schulty said. “But hindsight is 20-20.”

WASHINGTON — President Bush will nominate Curt Hebert, who has argued against federal involvement in the California electricity crisis, as chairman of the agency that regulates wholesale power markets.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer announced the selection as senior administration officials, including Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, met at the White House to discuss the California power situation.

Hebert, the former state utility regulator in Mississippi, is the only Republican on the current five-member Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which he will head.

When FERC in mid-December took modest steps to help California cope with its surging electricity prices, Hebert agreed with the measures, but said he would rather have favored eliminating all price controls.

In an interview last week, Bush also expressed his opposition to imposing price controls – in the form of FERC-mandated price caps on wholesale power – on the California market, saying they would be counterproductive.

California Gov. Gray Davis and the state’s cash-strapped utilities have urged FERC to intervene in the wholesale market, arguing that power generating companies were price gouging. FERC has so far rejected the plea.

Hebert was described by power industry officials as a free-market advocate when it comes to the electricity industry and has favored leaving decisions on electricity deregulation to states instead of the federal government.

Hebert will replace William Massey, a Democrat, who was elevated to the chairmanship by President Clinton on Jan. 19, after James Hoecker, another Clinton appointee, unexpectedly resigned.

Hebert, 38, a former Mississippi state legislator and member of the state Public Service Commission, joined FERC in November 1997. His current term expires in 2004.

He comes from Pascagoula, Miss., as does Lott.

With Hoecker’s resignation there remain two vacancies on the commission, which has been at the center of both the natural gas and electricity industry’s shift to deregulation in recent years.

It was FERC that issued rules that opened the nation’s electric power grid to competition in the mid-1990s, prompting many states — led by efforts in California — to embrace electricity industry deregulation amid promises it would lead to lower consumer prices because of competition. In most cases, deregulation has not led to substantial savings for consumers.

In California, where the effort has been acknowledged as a failure, power prices have soared amid shortages that have produced rolling blackouts in recent days and threatened two of the state’s major investor-owned utilities with bankruptcy.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to rule on a case that could affect how quickly American consumers see greater choice for local phone service — and perhaps lower prices – in a national market still dominated by the offspring of the old Bell system.

The case involves a dispute over the fees that dominant local phone companies charge to lease their lines to rivals that want to offer competing services. The 1996 Telecommunications Act, which sought to crack open the local phone monopoly, laid this out as a key way for upstart companies to get into the market.

The law allowed for telecom businesses, including long-distance providers, to lease phone lines and connect to existing networks run mostly by the regional Bells, the local phone companies severed from AT&T in the 1980s.

Rival providers serve less than 7 percent of the nation’s 192 million local phone lines, according to government figures. A majority of these companies rely on the networks of the Bells and other dominant players to compete in the market.

The fight before the high court involves the Federal Communications Commission’s system for how much competitors must pay phone companies to lease this equipment. In implementing the 1996 law, the FCC decided the rivals should pay based on the current and future worth of the existing network and its services.

But Bell companies such as Verizon Communications – formed by the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE Corp.– say the FCC’s pricing structure ignores the billions of dollars they have spent over the years to build and maintain the phone system.

They want a rate structure that includes the historical costs of running the network over the years. Verizon said Monday it was pleased by the court’s decision to review the case.

The Bells also object to the way the commission required them to combine elements of existing phone networks for lease to companies that want to enter the market, if those companies request it.

Local competitors, which support the FCC’s system, aren’t all fledgling upstarts. Such heavyweights as long-distance companies like WorldCom are also trying to get into local business.

The FCC’s pricing structure “is critical if consumers are to finally have a choice for local phone carriers as promised by Congress nearly five years ago,” said Julie Moore of WorldCom, which leases Bell lines to offer local service in a number of markets.

The commission contends its rules will spur “the development of competition in all communications markets,” said FCC general counsel Christopher Wright.

Some companies have sought to bypass the existing phone networks. For example, AT&T and other cable operators have begun offering local phone service over their cable lines directly to people’s homes. And some consumers have replaced their regular phones with wireless service at home.

But consumer advocates say these options are just developing and that a fair pricing structure is still needed to bolster competition for traditional local phone service.

The court’s decision will determine “whether we are going to see choices develop in the marketplace at or below today’s prices levels or only at much higher price levels,” said Gene Kimmelman of Consumers Union, which supports the FCC’s rates.

An appeals court threw out the government’s pricing structure last year, saying the costs should be based on actual equipment being provided by local phone companies rather than on hypothetical systems using the most efficient technology.

But the appeals court did not embrace the Bell companies’ arguments that they should be compensated for their investment over the years in maintaining the phone system.

Local phone companies, their rivals and the FCC all asked the Supreme Court to get involved. The court will not hear the case this term but is likely to do so in the fall.

The case is a follow-up to a January 1999 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the federal government’s authority to set the price rules.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who has stock in AT&T and MCI, did not participate in the decision to review the case.

NEW YORK — A key gauge of U.S. economic activity plunged 0.6 percent in December, the largest drop in five years and a signal of continued weakness in the U.S. economy.

The New York-based Conference Board said its Index of Leading Economic Indicators, which has been statistically revised and rebased, fell to 108.3 last month after two consecutive drops of 0.4 percent in October and November.

Three consecutive declines in the index traditionally has been seen by analysts as a signal that the U.S. economy is headed into recession.

ar brand by selling it to such mass outlets as Costco Warehouse Club without approval.

Dell said earnings for the three months ending Feb. 2 would be between 18 cents and 19 cents per share, down from the 26 cents the company originally expected and down from the 25 cents estimated by analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial. Revenue for the quarter will total $8.5 billion to $8.6 billion, 1 percent to 2 percent lower than expected, the company said.

Bill would make it harder to erase debt in court

WASHINGTON — The Senate Banking Committee chairman said Monday he plans to send President Bush a new bankruptcy overhaul bill that would make it harder for people to erase their debts in court.

Congress overwhelmingly passed a similar bill last year, but it was vetoed by President Clinton, who said it was unfair to ordinary debtors and working families who fall on hard times.

Bush is widely expected to sign such legislation if it reaches his desk.

NEW YORK — Profit-taking sent stocks modestly lower Monday as Wall Street rested after three weeks of healthy gains in the high-tech sector. An earnings warning from Dell Computer had little effect on the markets.

“We’ve had a pretty fabulous run since the Fed initially lowered rates on Jan. 2. Stock prices have done well,” said Steven Goldman, market strategist at Weeden & Co. “There was some bad news today, but investors appear to be looking ahead, instead of focusing on the rear-view mirror and bad earnings news for this last quarter.”

Dell, which fell 13 cents to $25.50, became the latest high-profile technology company to lower its earnings forecast because of the slowing economy and slumping consumer confidence.

So far this year, the market has had little reaction to similar warnings, reflecting many investors’ belief that weak earnings were already priced into stocks, and Monday’s trading continued that trend.

The Federal Reserve’s decision to lower interest rates earlier this month – and expectations that it will lower rates again next week – have made investors more confident even as companies release disappointing earnings outlooks.

“Six months ago, the same news would have sent Dell down 25 to 30 percent, but its stock is already down,” said John Forelli, portfolio manager at Independence Investment Associates.

“I think investors are starting to feel like the bad news is factored into stocks.”

Tech stocks were mixed, with losses primarily coming from profit-taking.

“This is part of the rotation that we’ve been seeing. Financial, utility and health care stocks are rebounding somewhat today after spending the first part of the year down,” Forelli, the Independence Investment manager, said. “It’s catch-up time now for some of these groups, so we’re seeing tech a little down as that happens.”

— The Associated Press

Manufacturing and retail stocks gained as well, with 3M rising $2.13 to $108.88 and Sears gaining $2.92, or more than 8 percent, to reach $36.60.

And Amgen shot up nearly 13 percent, gaining $7.63 to $67.63, on a court ruling that preserves the biotech company’s monopoly on its top-selling drug, Epogen.

Also Monday, a key gauge of U.S. economic activity plunged 0.6 percent in December, signaling continued weakness in the U.S. economy. The news from the New York-based Conference Board’s Index of Leading Economic Indicators was taken as yet another sign that the economy is slowing, giving the Fed more reason to lower rates.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners about 7 to 5 on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated volume came to 1.40 billion shares, compared with 1.68 billion Friday.

Psychotherapist Karen Rose was served an eviction notice several months ago to move out of her office of 12 years. Her deadline to vacate is today, but Rose has not yet packed.

Rose, who shared a suite with four other therapists, first received notice to move from the historic office building at 1942 University Avenue last August so the building owners could repair some fire damage to the roof as well as carry out some remodeling. Rose, who is blind, never moved out during the remodeling. Now that it is completed, Rose said the owner still wants her out but won't say why.

Rose has since been unable to find another space in downtown Berkeley that would accommodate several of her clients who rely on wheelchairs.

"It's not just that there's nothing affordable, there's nothing available," she said.

Rose is willing to pay more rent for her office but said the property owner, Reddy Reality, or its representative, Matt Gondak, of MRE Commercial Realty refuse to return her calls. She said she is sure there is some solution to the problem but owners don't seem to want to discuss it.

Monday, Jan. 22

The public is invited to suggest ideas and comment on plans for design-development at the rail stop/transit plaza area of West Berkeley.

Call 644-6580

Urban Homelessness

& Public Policy Solutions

9 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Alumni House

UC Berkeley

This day-long conference will include key scholars, service providers, and policymakers in the homelessness field. Some of the subjects to be covered will be: Homeless population dynamics and policy implications, health issues in homelessness, and legal and political issues in homelessness. Free and open to the public.

For more info, visit: http://urbanpolicy.berkeley.edu/homeless.htm

Building or Remodeling?

7 - 9 p.m.

Building Education Center

812 Page St.

Glen Kitzenberger discusses what you need to know before building or remodeling.

Call 525-7610

Wishes Versus Reality

10 a.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

A discussion with Betty Goren.

Call 644-6107

Tuesday, Jan. 23

Berkeley Camera Club

7:30 p.m.

Northbrae Community Church

941 The Alameda

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips.

Call Wade, 531-8664

PSR’s Annual Earl Lectures

9 a.m. - 10 p.m.

First Congregational Church of Berkeley

2345 Channing Way

Celebrating their 100th anniversary of lectures, this year will focus on Christian mission in a pluralistic age. This year there are 28 workshops and three panels of national religious leaders and scholars. Free

Call 849-8274

Elderly Mental Illness

1:30 - 3 p.m.

Alta Bates Summit Medical Center

Herrick Campus, CC Conference Room

2001 Dwight Way

Dr. Robert Dolgoff, Chief Psychiatrist at the Berkeley Therapy Institute will discuss the course of action to be taken when the best efforts of medical professionals no longer helps older folks with mental illnesses.

Call 869-6737

Blood Pressure for Seniors

9:30 - 11:30 a.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

With Alice Meyers.

Call 644-6107

Costs of Illness

1 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

Attorney Walter Rosen will discuss how to protect you home and savings from the financial effects of catastrophic illness.

It would be really nice if the city would repeal the 7.5 percent Energy User Tax we pay on our utility bill every month.

Since rates are going up, it would stabilize our gas and electric bill. Many lower income people are having to cut back on use of the furnace this winter.

Or at least suspend the tax til summer or until we see what is happening with rates. Do other cities employ a tax like this and, if so, how much is it?

William Telson

Berkeley

Government needs to

regulate utility monopoly

Editor:

The following is my dictionary’s definition for extortion: “The act of excavating an exorbitant price for something.” The electric power producers selling to our state’s distribution systems are extortionists, in the purest sense of the word.

The owners of those plants, apparently unregulated by law or morality, are getting hog rich exploiting a natural power monopoly, without regard for the adverse impact on California’s economy.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw the CEO of PG&E on television, explaining his company’s perception of the electricity problem. In his impassioned presentation he seemed to imply that PG&E is as much an innocent victim as we are, and that our pain is also PG&E’s pain. I want to nominate him for an Oscar.

More important was what PG&E’s CEO neglected to say. He didn’t tell us that PG&E was one of the principle promoters of this deregulation fiasco back in 1996, or that the PG&E company transferred billions from the sale of power generation plants to the PG&E parent corporation and now conveniently doesn’t seem to know how to get it back. Or how they now are trying to reorganize the corporation to protect those transferred assets from retrieval by re-regulation, or how much he and the other PG&E executives have personally invested in those price gouging power generators.

It isn’t difficult to calculate what the fair price of electricity should be — in terms of the original production costs at the wellhead, the costs for transmission, conversion and efficiency losses, plus a reasonable profit. The price now demanded of the consumer is many times what a reasonable profit should be. It is unconscionable greed.

The consequence of exorbitantly priced electricity will be disastrous to California industry, businesses and residents. Unless and until the price of electricity is somehow brought back down to its real cost, major industries will leave the state, marginal energy dependent businesses like restaurants will close, and bankruptcies will accelerate. No other commodity drives inflation like the price of energy, whether it is electricity, natural gas or oil. The price Californians pay for all these energy sources have gone up sharply in the past year. Unless the costs of energy are controlled, a recession will be inevitable.

It is the responsibility of government to regulate monopolies in the best interest of the public and the economy. It is our responsibility to demand it of our representatives.

John R. Shively

Oakland

Bush owes Renhquist a thank you for selection

Editor:

Someone forgot to gell George W. Bush to thank Supreme Court Chief Justice William Renhquist for handing the election towards him when the federal courts should have minded their own business.

Oh well, lets stop crying about it and get on with our lives. There is always 2004.

David Gee

Alameda

Dog is my co-pilot

Editor:

I'm writing in response to the letter, “Good intentions are taken to an absurd level,” about service dogs in public places, (Friday, January 19th). The author, John Ayra, voices an obviously over-determined and irrational fear of service dogs, which I find both shrill and rather incoherent.

Mr. Ayra contends that only guide dogs should be allowed in public places under the A.D.A., since the need for a guide dog is "constant and obvious, and the frequency is modest". He further insists, in ignorance, that service dogs other than guide dogs are only "pets" who should be left at home. Mr. Ayra is entitled to his opinions, but needs some disability awareness training on the roles service dogs play in the lives of those people with disabilities who are fortunate enough to have one.

I have MS, and have a service dog who picks up the many things I drop daily, and, because of various physical problems, I drop many of the things I touch. She also retrieves items I need that would. without her assistance, be out of my reach. She is trained to stand and allow me to lean on her for balance when I'm in transition from one place to another. The tasks that she manages for me allow me a measure of self reliance and a degree of autonomy. She mitigates my need to depend on the kindness or politeness of strangers passing by, many times throughout the day. These service dogs fill an important function and allow people with a physical disability to maintain some dignity in public situations. My dog is, literally, my co-pilot.

It is true that some dogs may cause an allergic reaction in some people with allergies. Similarly, scents worn by others, vehicle exhaust emissions and many other irritants in our daily lives cause allergic reactions in some people. Living in the world, as we do, contact with some of these substances is unavoidable. I apologize in advance in the unlikely event that the presence of my service dog, who does not, I assure you, have "mouth parts that have been in contact with rotting garbage or dead animals, and whose fur is not laced with poison oak, herbicides, pesticides, ticks and fleas", should cause a problem for anyone. Her presence in my life and in the public places where I go is vital, important and legal.

If Mr. Ayra feels, as he says, that "dogs are smelly nuisances, with fecal matter at both ends", etc., than I suggest that he not get a dog, himself, that he not get close to any service dog in a public place, and that he consider consulting a mental health professional to gain some understanding of his illogical and ill-founded fears.

After the Cal-St. Mary’s rugby match on Saturday, Cal head coach Jack Clark said he wasn’t happy with his team’s performance, and “at least now we know what it is we have to work on.”

All-American Shaun Paga said, “we were sloppy today, but we have a lot of potential.”

To put the comments into perspective of the sky-high expectations for the Bears this season, consider that they beat the Gaels 78-14 in their first match of the year.

The Bears, winners of 10 straight national championships, thoroughly dominated the action on Witter Field for almost the entire game, save a 10-minute stretch during which St. Mary’s scored both of their tries on sudden breakaways. Although the Gaels were a game bunch, they were simply outmatched by the nation’s best collegiate team.

Cal (1-0) scored 12 tries on the day, including two each by backs Michael Bonetto, David Guest and Cameron Bunce. They were ferocious on defense, turning the Gaels (0-1) back twice in the second half from less than two yards out. Even when Paga was sin-binned for 10 minutes for putting his boots to a St. Mary’s player, the Bears went forward and scored a try with only 14 players.

“This is one of the best Cal team’s I’ve ever seen,” said St. Mary’s head coach Mike O’Dea. He should know; O’Dea was a member of the first four teams in the current national title streak.

“It’s exciting to come back and be a part of the lore of Strawberry Canyon, but it’s tough when you’re playing against the best in the nation,” he said. “Their defense was just phenomenal today.”

Both Clark and Paga disagreed, as they made identical statements after the game.

“We got off to a sloppy start on defense,” each one said.

Both also complimented the Gaels for their enthusiasm. The St. Mary’s players were perfectly willing to trade hits with the Bears, a rarity for a team facing a clearly superior foe. But they were clearly tiring near the end of the match, allowing three easy tries in the final 13 minutes, including an easy interception that Bunce turned into a 50-yard try at the final whistle.

Cal took just four minutes to score their first try of the match and season, with flanker Mark Vickers punching the ball into the right corner of the end zone from a Cal scrum.

The Bears were leading 15-0 before St. Mary’s got on the board, with center Ryan Thompson breaking a spectacular 40-yard run after busting through Cal’s backline in the 19th minute. Gael scrumhalf A.J. Anton-Giovanni scored with a short dive over the goal line 10 minutes later, but the Gaels couldn’t muster much more offense in the game, and were turned back twice when they got near another score.

The 19 teachers at Cragmont Elementary School are each eligible for up to a $25,000 bonus because of the school’s improvement in the state’s academic performance index.

And teachers, custodians, librarians and secretaries at all other Berkeley schools — with the exception of Berkeley High School, Longfellow Middle School and Washington Elementary School — will be eligible for bonuses of up to $750 each at the end of this month.

The schools themselves will be eligible for up to a $68 to $150 per student bonus, which for a 400-student school, could mean the bonus could range from $27,200 to $60,000 per school.

That money could be used for additional text books, staff development and extra tutors, according to Karen Sarlo, Berkeley Unified School District spokesperson.

More than $677 million in teacher, staff and school incentives will be divvied up this year as a result of three award programs passed by the state legislature in 1999 and 2000. The California Department of Education released academic performance numbers for every state school last week, which will be used to determine which schools met certain requirements to receive the money. The API is based on results of the Stanford-9 achievement test in conjunction with the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program.

Right now, spokesperson Kathleen Sieborn said the department is in the midst of calculating how many schools qualify for the bonuses and how much they should recieve.

All Berkeley schools scored higher on the API than last year, but Sarlo said Cragmont is a frontrunner for the Certified Staff Performance money because of its vast improvement. This year, Cragmont scored a 731 out of 1,000. Last year, Cragmont scored a 607 out of 1,000. The teacher bonus ranges from $5,000 to $25,000 and may not be awarded until next Fall since teachers must fill out an applicaton for the money beginning in March, said Cragmont Principal Jason Lustig. All other money will be distributed before the end of this school year and as soon as February 20, Sieborn said.

“The intent of the award is to reward sites and staff for academic achievement,” she said.

Although Lustig said he is pleased that his staff may recieve the bonuses, he is also cautious. Because all teachers are working hard, Lustig said it may have made more sense to make the amount smaller so more teachers could benefit.

“Certainly people are aware that it’s there and they are excited about it,” he said. “But there are always issues because everyone is working hard and only certain people are being awarded quite significantly. It may encourage cheating, teaching students just for the test and it may create tension between the schools.”

But overall, Lustig said the API is a brilliant idea because it provides a tangible score that both parents and the public can understand.

“It motivates kids and it shows meaningful change. This is awesome. We never had things like this before,” he said. “I just hope that they don’t get wrapped up in the lingo and start basing it more on the Sat-9.”

Sarlo also hopes that the API will soon start reflecting student work all year long.

“There are arguments about the whole process for and against,” she said. “But it’s really nice for the teachers to rewarded for the work that they do.”

On Saturday afternoon, Cal’s women’s basketball team saw the chance to rid themselves of a haunting 14-game losing streak to Stanford. To Cal faithful, Saturday afternoon was to be their chance to turn the tables on their struggling arch-rivals.

Though the Bears had the once-mighty Cardinal on its heels, they could not deliver the knockout blow. The Cardinal, led by freshman forward Nicole Powell’s 19 points and 12 rebounds, defeated the Bears 63-56 at Haas Pavilion, their 15th consecutive victory over Cal. The loss dropped the Bears record to 5-10, and 1-4 in conference play.

“We are very disappointed,” said Cal head coach Caren Horstmeyer. “Our team came into this game with a lot of confidence that we could win.”

The Bears were led by their senior backcourt of Courtney Johnson and Kenya Corley. Corley used her superior athleticism to repeatedly slash to the basket and led the team with 18 points. Johnson chipped in with 17 and was an imposing force on defense, leading both teams with six steals. But valiantly as they tried, neither could put the vulnerable Cardinal team away when they needed to, and neither were in the mood to celebrate any kind of moral victory after the game.

“We lost; it doesn’t matter how close the score was,” said Johnson.

The game was a nip-and-tuck affair, with the final outcome in question for most of the afternoon. With 2:15 remaining, the Cardinal got the ball inside to forward Lindsey Yamasaki, who scored on a nifty inside shot to give the Cardinal a 56-54 lead. After a Corley miss on the Cal end, Powell raced down the court, posted up the smaller Johnson, and scored on a short jumper that stretched the Cardinal lead to four with just 1:31 remaining. Though the Bears would come as close as three points late in the game, they could not even the score as time expired.

Powell, playing point guard due to Stanford’s backcourt injuries, managed to hand out four assists, record four steals, and block a shot in her afternoon – none of which was possible, according to her, without her lucky headband.

“I couldn’t think of what I forgot to pack, and when I was getting ready for the game, I couldn’t find my headband,” Powell grinned sheepishly. Luckily, Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer’s sister, Heidi, was able to pick up the equipment while en route to Berkeley. “Thank goodness for the headband,” said VanDerveer after the game. Without Nicole Powell, we would have been in real trouble.”

The Bears were able to use their athleticism and quickness to disrupt the Cardinal offense, causing 24 Cardinal turnovers. However, the Cardinal hammered the Bears on the boards, out-rebounding them 49-34.

“They’re a big team, and if you’re smaller, you’d better block out,” said Horstmeyer. “We didn’t do what we needed to do.”

For Johnson, Corley, and the team’s remaining seniors, their final chance to defeat Stanford will come next month in the unfriendly Maples Pavilion.

The Bears will stay home next week, as they host Washington State Thursday and Washington on Saturday. Both games will begin at 7:30 p.m.

A powder-caked woman, dressed in lemon-yellow skirts and covered in shiny sequins marched down San Francisco’s Grove Street on stilts Saturday, like a lemon-meringue pie making a stiff debut.

“I was told that people on stilts were barred from the inauguration,” she said. “So I’m dressed like someone at an inaugural ball.”

An outraged, sometimes outrageous, parade of protesters marched from San Francisco’s Civic Center to Jefferson Park on Saturday to protest the inauguration of the George W. Bush as President of the United States. The rally swelled with citizens who felt the Republican party had corrupted the democratic process.

“There’s no way you could stay home today,” Rodgers said. “Then you’d have to accept the lie,” she said.

Signs attested to that sentiment with slogans like saying “Hail to the Thief,” “Don’t blame me, I voted with the majority,” and “Prune the shrub.”

While wry humor abounded — a common way to deal with what many called “tragic” election results — one earnest sign encapsulated many of the feelings of the crowd — George W. Bush, selected though racism and voter fraud.

Denise Stripling was among the group who had come from the Unitarian Fellowship in Berkeley. Stripling, an African-American originally from South Florida condemned the voting irregularities in her home state, but said they were not out of the ordinary. But this year Stripling could not approve of business as usual.

"We have to send a message to the new president that their failure to adhere to the people's selection is akin to a Texas lynching," she said.

Police estimated that between 10,000 and 15,000 people attended the rally and march, but Richard Becker, Western Region Co-Director of the International Action Center said that well over 15,000 people were in attendance.

That number, he said, is two to three times as many as the International Action Center expected when they began planning the rally in October. The rally was planned to protest the inauguration of either Bush or Vice President Al Gore. The events surrounding the election brought out a crowd of people about the election, but the main point of the rally was to look beyond the question of Florida’s electoral votes.

“Is Bush legitimate? No he’s not. But if Gore had won, that doesn’t mean the election would be fair,” said Becker.

“The unfairness of the electoral process goes much much deeper. Both Bush and Gore were selected to be the nominees by big money.” He said that the International Action Center organized the rally to educate people about issues like racism, the death penalty and US militarism. Speakers touched on issues like socialism and the US embargo on Iraq.

Many Berkeley groups heeded the call, and came out to representing their organizations. Penny Rosenwasser from Berkeley's Middle East Children's Alliance, rallied the crowd, reminding them the 5,000 children die each month in Iraq from sanctions there.

A large contingent from UC Berkeley — Students for Justice in Palestine — wore black armbands and brought signs calling for a reexamination of the US’s support of Israel. UC Berkeley Law student Will Youmans felt that the 2000 elections provide a window into the lack of democracy in foreign policy making.

“Everyone there will have feelings that the elections are a fraud. Our ability to link the shoddy state of democracy to biased foreign policy might be illuminating to people who have not made the connection,” he said.

Although Becker hoped that the Monday’s rallies across the nation would begin a new movement to, he said, “put the needs of people here and around the world first.” Many of the marchers felt the most important point, at least for now, was to start with a condemnation of the inauguration.

Kate Kline May of Berkeley made the trek on Saturday specifically to challenge what she views as a corruption of democracy.

“I believe sincerely, as do many lawyers and professors, that they stole the election by chicanery,” said Kline May of Berkeley.

While the confluence of causes brought spirit and numbers, she worried that what for her was the major issue, the election, could become obfuscated by the myriad causes.

Long-time Democrat Joyce Glick agreed that the march made one pointed message. “I think it has to go down in history that this election was a fraud,” she said.

Despite committing a season-high 23 turnovers, the Cal men’s basketball team beat South Florida 79-69 on Saturday at Haas Pavilion, pulling away in the final two minutes.

Up by just one point after South Florida’s Reggie Kohn hit a three-pointer with 2:15 left in the game, Cal went on a nine-point run to finish the game. The run was ignited by Shantay Legans’ pull-up three and closed with a fast-break three-point play by Ryan Forehan-Kelly.

The Bears overcame their sloppy ball-handling by shooting a season-high 60.5 percent from the field, and by holding South Florida’s B.B. Waldon and Altron Jackson to a combined 24 points on 9-of-28 shooting. Waldon and Jackson had been averaging nearly 38 points per game coming into the game.

“Those are two players who are on every NBA scout’s list,” Cal head coach Ben Braun said. “I thought we did a great job on them tonight.”

Kohn took up the slack by scoring 18 points, all on three-pointers.

“We didn’t expect that from him,” Cal forward Sean Lampley said. “The point guards were told to lay off of him.”

Cal won the game at the free-throw line, shooting 35 freebies to just 13 by the Bulls. That fact didn’t go unnoticed by South Florida head coach Seth Greenberg, who said he thought the officiating crew would be mixed, rather than the Pac-10 crew that worked the game.

“It’s real hard to win the game when they go to the line that many more times than us,” he said.

The Bears came into the game looking to shake the memory of their 26-point loss to Stanford on Wednesday, but the South Florida 1-3-1 zone confused them for nearly the entire game. The Cal offense was totally out of sync in the first half, as the guards tossed the ball back and forth without showing much initiative. Braun told Lampley at halftime that he needed to go get the ball for the offense to run correctly.

“Coach told me that it was my fault we weren’t doing anything,” said Lampley, who led all scorers with 16 points. “So I stepped to the high post to help out.”

Braun said he isn’t afraid to put the pressure on his lone senior’s shoulders.

“I tell Sean all the time he’s the reason we’re good and he’s the reason we’re bad,” Braun said. “He’s a senior and he can take it.”

LOS ANGELES – President Clinton may have heeded federal prosecutors’ pleas to deny Michael Milken a pardon, but the financier’s case is unlikely to fade completely. The man who built Wall Street’s junk bond market continues to spend much of his wealth on cancer research and other charitable causes.

Milken takes quick offense at suggestions that his philanthropic activities, which moved into high gear after his release from prison in 1993, are an attempt to restore his public image or win a pardon. And he has many friends to argue his case.

“I’ve never met anyone who was more passionate about truly making the world a better place for people to live, as corny as that may sound,” Ted Virtue, a Milken colleague at Drexel and president of Deutsche Bank Securities, said. “I don’t think it’s a facade.”

Milken pleaded guilty to six counts of security fraud in 1990 and was barred from the securities business for life. In 1995, federal authorities began investigating Milken again, soon after it became public that Milken received a fee of $50 million for helping to broker Time Warner’s purchase of Turner Broadcasting.

The SEC sued Milken in February 1998 for violating his pledge not to re-enter the securities business. Without admitting to or denying the allegations, Milken agreed to repay $47 million in brokerage fees.

As President Clinton prepared to hand over office, he was considering scores of pardon requests, including one on Milken’s behalf.

Milken and his family have given more than $750 million away over the past 30 years, according to a Milken spokesman. Much of it is channeled through the Milken Family Foundation, founded in 1982, which funds education and medical research, especially in the area of cancer.

Several Milken family members have suffered from cancer. Only days after his release from a federal prison, after serving 22 months of a 10-year sentence for securities fraud, Milken was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which is now in remission. He responded by launching CaP CURE, an association to fund cancer research into the deadly disease.

Milken, 54, is also chairman of the Milken Institute, a nonprofit think tank, and Knowledge Universe, a for-profit company that invests in a variety of young companies.

Samuel Broder, a former head of the National Cancer Institute who now is vice president of Celera Genomics, said Milken’s efforts have greatly accelerated research into prostate cancer and other diseases and had a lasting impact on the careers of many scientists.

“He fostered a lot of research activity that would not have gotten done otherwise,” Broder said.

Federal officials acknowledge his charitable activities, but have argued that they should not overshadow the harm they say he has done to the country’s financial markets.

Richard Walker, enforcement director of the Securities and Exchange Commission, wrote the White House opposing a presidential pardon saying, “Few people have done more than Milken to undermine public confidence in our markets.” Walker also wrote, “Philanthropy cannot provide a license to violate the law.”

Milken’s misconduct during the 1990s, Walker said, showed Milken’s “continuing contempt for the law and discredits any claim that he has learned from his mistakes and has been rehabilitated.”

Friends and associates of Milken reject the notion that Milken used his philanthropy as a shield for illegal activities or wants a pardon so he can resume his securities activities.

Geoffrey Moore, senior vice president of Knowledge Universe and Milken’s spokesman, said Milken is not planning a return to high finance should he be pardoned.

“He feels he has more than a lifetime’s worth of work in his medical research and education initiatives,” Moore said.

Wall Street observers generally agree that Milken made lasting contributions to the financial markets. They differ on whether those achievements, along with his philanthropy, merit a pardon.

“Michael Milken helped bring many companies to market that otherwise would not have been able to,” said Alan Shapiro, a professor of banking and finance at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California.

Shapiro believes Milken may have angered investment bankers, corporate leaders and federal regulators with his aggressive tactics, prompting authorities to make him an example.

“If it had been anyone other than Milken, he wouldn’t have been prosecuted,” he said. “At best, he should have had civil, not criminal, penalties imposed.”

A presidential pardon may change Milken’s legal status, but it is unlikely to change many minds.

“Milken was a crook. He pleaded guilty to felony counts,” said Mark Eaker, a professor of business administration at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. “Regardless of what else he has or hasn’t done or what you think of him, that’s a fact.”

About three dozen police officers swarmed into the downtown area Friday afternoon when a high school rivalry involving about 150 students nearly turned into a riot.

According to Berkeley Police Lt. Russell Lopes, at approximately 4 p.m., two officers called for all available units to the intersection of Shattuck Avenue and Allston Way. The officers had been trying to disperse the large group of teenagers when several youths began shoving and punching each other. The two officers called for backup after several bottles were thrown in their direction from the crowd.

“We all bailed out of the station when we got the call,” Lopes said.

Traffic was blocked at the intersection of Shattuck Avenue and Allston Way for about 30 minutes while Berkeley, BART and University police quickly dispersed the crowd of teenagers. Lopes said there were no injuries and no arrests.

Around the time classes were dismissed for the weekend, as many as 50 Richmond High School students showed up at the Berkeley High campus apparently to retaliate for a previous altercation, according to Lopes.

“It’s one of those back and forth things,” Lopes said. “Some Richmond kids beat up a Berkeley kid and then some Berkeley kids beat up a Richmond kid, etc.,”

Berkeley merchants have long-complained about students flooding downtown both during the lunch hour and after school.

School officials lock the Berkeley High campus after school lets out. Lopes said the two groups of students apparently moved from campus to the downtown area when trouble began.

Two female Berkeley students at the scene, who refused to give their names, said it was the result of an ongoing rivalry between the two high schools. “El Cerrito and Richmond kids just don’t like Berkeley kids and Berkeley kids don’t like them,” one said.

The police formed a line of about 10 officers and moved the Berkeley students south down Shattuck to Kittredge Street while another line of officers directed the Richmond students north on Shattuck to the BART station.

“Kids were fighting, rioting, throwing bottles and we moved them down the street,” said one police officer redirecting foot traffic who did not want to give his name. “We’re separating them. We’re telling the Berkeley kids to go home and telling the Richmond kids to go home. There’s too many of them and not enough of us.”

Joranso Burton, a student teacher at Berkeley High, was walking by during the melee.

“There was some loud talking and then it escalated into a push and a shove and then the police swarmed in,” he said.

Vickie Reed, a downtown business owner located on the corner where the near-riot occurred said it seemed like an isolated incident and that she was never scared.

“We locked the door. We have bulletproof glass. A few customers came in [visibly shaken] and we locked them in,” she said. “It’s just like the old days in the 60s.”

Don Washington, a Berkeley guide that walks downtown said it was difficult to see what happened because it all went down too fast.

“The police got everything under control pretty fast,” he said. “And there was no unnecessary force. It’s good that they’re here.”

Officers let the late-afternoon traffic flow again after the crowd dispersed.

“It don’t matter that they broke it up, it’s going to happen another day,” said a female student who did not want to give her name.

Glen Kitzenberger discusses what homeowners need to know before building or remodeling. Skip Wenz discusses the pros and cons of building an addition. Free

Call 525-7610

Free Puppet Shows

1:30 & 2:30 p.m.

Hall of Health

2230 Shattuck Ave.

The Kids on the Block, an award-winning educational puppet troupe, includes puppets with such conditions as cerebral palsy, blindness and Down syndrome.

Bengal Basin seminar

3 p.m.

Warren Hall, Room 22

UC Berkeley

Part of the Third International India Bangladesh Symposium for reducing the impact of toxic chemicals on the Bengal Basin. With World Poet Rabindranath Tagore. 841-3253

Flu shot clinic

10 a.m. - 2 p.m.

Safeway

5130 Broadway

Flu vaccines for $12; Pneumonia vaccines for $25. Free for seniors covered by Medicare. Vaccinations for ages 13 and up.

Call 1-800-500-2400

Sunday, Jan. 21

Saying No To Power

10:30 a.m.

Berkeley Richmond

Jewish Community Center

1414 Walnut St. (at Rose)

Bill Mandel, author and activist talks about his new book.

$4 - $5 848-0237

Single Parents and Step

& Blended

Family Interfaith Fellowship

4 - 6 p.m.

Beth El Synagogue

2301 Vine St. (at Spruce)

An interfaith and very open group that welcomes parents and their children of all affiliations and orientations.

Monday, Jan. 22

Berkeley Rail

Stop Community

Design Workshop

7 - 9 p.m.

West Berkeley Senior Center

1900 Sixth St.

The public is invited to suggest ideas and comment on plans for design-development at the rail stop/transit plaza area of West Berkeley. Call 644-6580

Urban Homelessness

& Public Policy Solutions

9 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Alumni House

UC Berkeley

This day-long conference will include key scholars, service providers, and policymakers in the homelessness field. Free For more information: http://urbanpolicy.berkeley.edu/homeless.htm

Building or remodeling?

7 - 9 p.m.

Building Education Center

812 Page St.

Glen Kitzenberger discusses what you need to know before building or remodeling. 525-7610

Wishes versus reality

10 a.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

A discussion with Betty Goren.

Call 644-6107

Tuesday, Jan. 23

Berkeley Camera Club

7:30 p.m.

Northbrae Community Church

941 The Alameda

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips.

Call Wade, 531-8664

— Compiled by

Chason Wainwright

PSR’s Annual Earl Lectures

9 a.m. - 10 p.m.

First Congregational Church of Berkeley

2345 Channing Way

Celebrating their 100th anniversary of lectures, this year will focus on Christian mission in a pluralistic age. This year there are 28 workshops and three panels of national religious leaders and scholars. Free

Call 849-8274

Elderly Mental Illness

1:30 - 3 p.m.

Alta Bates Summit Medical Center

Herrick Campus, CC Conference Room

2001 Dwight Way

Dr. Robert Dolgoff, Chief Psychiatrist at the Berkeley Therapy Institute will discuss the course of action to be taken when the best efforts of medical professionals no longer helps older folks with mental illnesses.

Call 869-6737

Blood Pressure for Seniors

9:30 - 11:30 a.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

With Alice Meyers.

Call 644-6107

Costs of Illness

1 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

Attorney Walter Rosen will discuss how to protect you home and savings from the financial effects of catastrophic illness.

Homelessness is a serious and growing problem. I have sent the following letter to Councilmember Margeret Breland and I urge other concerned citizens to present their ideas to their council-members.

I have seen a number of articles on actions taken by the city council with regards to the homeless problem in Berkeley, but none of them seem to come to grip with the regional problem. Homeless papers have documented a pervasive trend towards displacing the homeless: San Francisco's "Matrix" program, Albany's removal of the homeless from the Albany landfill, Santa Cruz's sleeping ban, and so on. The point of many of these policies is to get the homeless to move out - preferably out of town, to some other town, like Berkeley. The city of Berkeley has enough problems dealing with its own population; we cannot deal with other citys' problems too. The city council needs to immediately lodge formal protests with each and every city which is failing to properly deal with its own homeless problem. The city council should further request the state to withdraw social services funding from those cities and areas which are flagrantly abrogating their responsibilites, and to redirect those funds to the cities which have continued to try to deal with the problems. I further suggest that city consider direct lawsuits, with a request for penalty amounts to cover the quality of life costs for the housed population in dealing with the influx of homeless people.

Coming off of what Berkeley head coach Gene Nakamura called the most severe defeat of his career, the Lady ’Jackets rebounded nicely, thrashing the Alameda Hornets and nearly breaking triple digits on the scoreboard.

Although the Yellowjackets’ final shot rimmed out, it was a convincing 98-40 win for a team that was beaten by 34 points less than a week ago.

Senior forward Robin Roberson led the way, as usual, with 25 points, but the ’Jackets spread the scoring around, with five players in double figures.

After Alameda’s Kumauri Willis found holes in the Berkeley defense for two layups that tied the game at 4-4, Berkeley (12-5 overall, 4-0 ACCAL) went on one of their signature runs, using a fierce full-court press to force turnovers and get easy buckets. Before the Hornets (7-10, 1-3) could recover their senses, they had committed 12 turnovers and were behind 25-4. Roberson was hitting from the inside and outside, scoring 11 points and pulling down six rebounds in the quarter despite sitting with 2:30 on the clock.

“I really neede to step it up mentally,” said Roberson, who had a sub-par game against Hanford. “I wanted to focus on the little things, like rebounding and setting good screens. The shots just came to me.”

Roberson shook off a slight shooting slump with a 10-of-14 performance, including making both of her three-pointers.

Alameda lost all five starters from last season, and was missing two of this year’s starters due to injury. But head coach Brad Thomas said that probably didn’t make a huge difference.

“We’re just not in the same league as them right now,” Thomas said. “Even with our full team, we still lose this game by a lot. Maybe not quite as much, but a lot.”

Nakamura emptied his bench for most of the second quarter and pulled back the press for the rest of the game, and the Hornets responded started hitting three-pointers. Jenny O’Neall, Meghan Pipkin and Willis all hit long bombs to pull their team to within 20 points, but that was as close as they would come for the rest of the night. They continued throwing up threes, however, and seemed content to settle for perimeter shots against the bigger ’Jackets.

“That’s the kind of team they are, they love shooting three-pointers,” Nakamura said. “If you give them 62 open threes, they’ll take 62 threes.”

Friday’s game marked the return to the starting lineup of senior Danielle Milburn, who had been riding the bench for a few games as her play had dropped off early in the season. Nakamura has rotated players in and out of the point guard spot all year.

“I’m still looking for a fifth player to step up and take the spot alongside my four starters,” Nakamura said. “Danielle showed that she can do that tonight.”

Milburn started quietly, distributing the ball for most of the first quarter and getting her teammates good shots. But she came out of halftime looking to score, and quickly hit two three-pointers to get Berkeley out of the gate running.

“I was a little shaky at the start, because I didn’t want to mess up my first game back as a starter,” she said. “But I got comfortable, and decided to shoot the ball more.”

Milburn finished the game with 10 points, and may have cemented her starting spot, at least for a few games.

The only drama left was to see whether Berkeley could break 100 points for the first time this year. Although Nakamura said he didn’t really want to hit triple digits, his starters were in full roar on the bench, encouraging the players on the floor to go for it. The ’Jackets got the ball back with 6.5 seconds left on the clock, and could only manage an off-balance jumper by freshman guard Joy White that rolled around the rim before dropping off.

“We wanted to break 100, but coach didn’t want to put us back in,” Roberson said.

Nakamura said he thought going for a huge point total was disrespectful of the opponent.

“If I wanted to, we could score 150 points a lot of nights,” he said. “But that’s low-class.”

School officials are expressing delight in the state’s recent publication of the Academic Performance Index in which the majority of Berkeley schools showed improvement over last year.

While most schools ranked just below their growth targets, they were mostly on par with similar schools. Two schools – Thousand Oaks Elementary and Rosa Parks Environmental Science Magnet School – were ranked four out of 10, but school officials said that could be attributed to several factors.

“Thousand Oaks has one of the largest populations where the student’s primary language is not English,” said Terry Doran, president of the Berkeley Unified School District. “I believe they should be tested in their native language first, but we just have to deal with that. We feel these students are right on track.”

Doran said the same holds true for Parks School which has a two-way language immersion program that he feels is superior to the program at Thousand Oaks.

Both Doran and Superintendent Jack McLaughlin said that the API is important as a way to assess student growth, but also indicated that it is merely one indicator of how a school

is doing.

“Test scores are a snap shot of how [students] are on that day of the test,” McLaughlin said. “It doesn’t assess day to day progress.”

Attendance, reading achievement, intervention for troubled students and even minute details like nutrition are important factors in student success, Doran said.

“We’re looking beyond test scores,” he said.

Ann Gaebler, president of the Thousand Oaks Parent Teacher Association and a parent at the school for 10 years, said the test results hold little weight for her.

“Personally as a parent, I’m more concerned with what the teachers are doing in the classroom. ... As far as test scores go, it’s a reflection of the diverse community that goes to that school. A huge range of non-native speakers go to the school and they are not tested in their language,” she said. “I don’t think, ‘Oh my God, what kind of school am I sending my kid to?’ I know what kind of school I send my kids to, one of the best schools in Berkeley.”

A Berkeley bakery collective is closing its doors early today so its workers can go to the San Francisco protest of President George W. Bush’s inauguration.

“Everyone is upset because no one on this area voted for Bush,” said Jim Stockton, a worker at Nabolom Bakery in the Elmwood neighborhood for the past seven years.

Two weeks ago, Stockton planted a small placard on the bakery’s counter announcing the noon protest at San Francisco’s civic center. This week, he placed a sign announcing that the 25-year-old collective would shut down at 11 a.m. so its 20 workers can attend the protest.

“Hopefully we’ll see some good speeches and get some ideas about what to do about the next four years,” he said.

Elsie Lee, a baker at Nabolom for the past eight years, said the bakery used to more political but that movement waned for a few years before Stockton arrived.

“Jim brought us back and it feels like we’re starting something,” she said.

Lee said the protest will have two

purposes for her. First, she’s concerned that rent and the cost of living is skyrocketing in this area.

“It’s so high in the area that we won’t be able to stay where we grew up,” she said.

Drivers who rely on radio traffic reports may soon have an easier way to navigate the dreaded freeway commute.

A University of California, Berkeley, professor and his team of students have developed a way to get updates on traffic hotspots, alternative routes and travel times – up to an hour in advance – via the Internet or cellular phone.

Varaiya is one of the main researchers in the proposed UC Berkeley-led Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS). A joint program with UC Santa Cruz and UC Merced, CITRIS is a research initiative dedicated to creating technology to improve everyday living.

Currently PeMS is only available to engineers at the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and to the research community. But Varaiya hopes his invention will soon enjoy widespread use through Internet service providers and public agency traveler information efforts.

At the heart of Varaiya's invention is software that converts data from Caltrans' existing vehicle detection network into easy-to-read tables and graphs. The PeMS Web page provides a map of the entire freeway system in a given urban area. A color-coded link provides the freeway speed, and an animation shows how congestion starts and spreads. By selecting an origin and destination on the map, the user can see how long each route to the destination will take. PeMS also analyses traffic patterns and predicts travel times up to an hour in advance.

While PeMS has obvious advantages for commuters, Varaiya, who is UC Berkeley’s Nortel Networks Distinguished Professor, originally designed the system to help Caltrans officials monitor traffic patterns. "PeMS can be used by managers to get an overall view of traffic trends, by engineers to spot and eliminate bottlenecks and help them design solutions, by planners to evaluate proposals for new routes," Varaiya said.

Caltrans officials have already begun using PeMS. "The real benefit of PeMS is it gives us a better understanding of what is happening on the freeways," said John Wolf, chief of the Office of System Management Planning in the Caltrans Traffic Operations Program.

According to Varaiya's calculations, appropriate traffic management in the Los Angeles area could save more than $1 billion per year in lost time and fuel costs. And this estimate did not include costs associated with pollution, increased accidents or stress.

Using PeMS, Varaiya found that the most efficient way to reduce commute times is to keep freeway traffic moving at 60 miles per hour.

The best way to maintain this speed during peak use hours, he said, is to limit the number of cars allowed onto the freeway. This could mean longer waits at on-ramps, but, overall, the trip time would be shortened.

Varaiya envisions a system where drivers could be notified of the best time to leave for the journey. “Instead of being parked on the freeway, you could spend ten more minutes on your coffee break or in your office,” he said.

In addition to its use in traffic management, PeMS can predict travel times.

For example, a 40-mile trip across Los Angeles on Interstate-10 can take from 40 to 130 minutes, depending on traffic. By accessing PeMS, a traveler could inform business clients of her arrival time.

Although the software for each urban area must be customized, a new Caltrans district can be added within weeks. Varaiya and his students are currently adapting software for Los Angeles, which generates one gigabyte (one billion bytes) of data per day. The entire state generates an average of two gigabytes per day.

PeMS is not yet applicable in the Bay Area, where traffic has worsened dramatically in the past five years, said Varaiya.

But Caltrans has recently increased availability of data from the detectors at least 10-fold, said Judy Chen, chief of the Caltrans Office of Traffic Systems.

Caltrans also feeds data to TravInfo, a traffic information system - dial 817-1717 in the nine-county Bay Area – maintained by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. But PeMS provides more detailed analyses that can be used for research.

Each vehicle-counting device, or loop detector, consists of an electrical wire buried in the pavement.

When a vehicle passes over the wire, the metal in the vehicle causes fluctuations in the electric current. A detector that monitors a four-lane highway can cost $100,000 or more.

For PeMS, the loop detectors send data every 30 seconds to a Sun 450 computer

workstation in the basement of UC Berkeley's Cory Hall. PeMS software combines the 30-second readings into 5-minute readings that yield the number of cars and their average speed for each lane, and then combines the lane-by-lane data into an overall measure of freeway flow, occupancy and speed.

Traffic monitoring systems like PeMS can accommodate future demand for the next five years, Varaiya said.

However, long-term solutions will require automated vehicle guidance systems like those being developed by California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH), a collaborative public and private effort to apply advanced technology to reducing traffic congestion, air pollution and energy consumption.

Eventually, through CITRIS, the proposed UC Berkeley center, Varaiya and Malik plan to expand their traffic monitoring research to deploy tiny wireless sensors that can beam traffic data to a central computing facility, yielding even more precise estimations of traffic flow.

PeMS is supported by Caltrans and the National Science Foundation through California PATH.

SACRAMENTO — The driver of a big rig that rammed the state Capitol told acquaintances and family members he was upset over his new wife and his new job, investigators said Friday.

Investigators determined that 37-year-old Michael Bowers of Hemet was despondent and did not act as part of a larger group, said California Highway Patrol Commissioner D.O. “Spike” Helmick.

Medical examiners used dental records to positively identify Bowers Friday as the driver of the 18-wheeler that plowed into the Capitol’s south porch Tuesday.

He was not killed instantly in the impact, as investigators initially assumed.

He died of smoke and carbon monoxide inhalation, and subsequently was incinerated when the truck burst into flames, said Sacramento County Coroner Paul Smith.

Smith said an autopsy could not determine if Bowers was conscious after the crash, or for how long.

“At this particular time it is our belief that this gentleman was by himself, he was not any kind of a terrorist or working with other individuals with a desire to do significant damage,” Helmick said.

“He is an individual who we believe, because of some personal issues, was angered that particular day, ... very distraught that particular day.”

The mentally ill former prison inmate apparently was upset over his souring relationship with his new wife, Helmick said, and he didn’t like the job he had held for 10 days with Salt

Lake City-based Dick Simon Trucking Inc.

Bowers had a valid truck driving license, a valid medical clearance good through February 2001 – and he was cleared to transport hazardous materials, though at the time of the crash he was transporting a load of powdered milk.

He apparently picked the Capitol as a target of opportunity to vent his anger at his life and at the prison and mental health systems he blamed for keeping him locked up much of his adult life, Helmick said.

There is no indication he was trying to hurt any particular individual, though he had asked Gov. Gray Davis and a state senator for help in getting released from custody in 1999.

Helmick said Bowers’ talk of being part of a “New World Order” apparently was delusional.

However, it led to two fights with his wife, who along with his parents was formally informed Friday of his death.

Bowers was released Jan. 3 after a month in the Riverside County jail after he pleaded guilty to assaulting his new wife during an argument over odd statements he made about his role with the “New World Order,” said Riverside County sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Mark Lohman.

Bowers married the woman Nov. 27 after her release from prison, Lohman said, but then made her hitchhike back to Riverside County from their honeymoon in the Bishop area in east central California after a previous argument over his comments about the group.

Medical examiners obtained enough blood to analyze for drugs and alcohol, which Smith said may help explain Bowers’ actions. Results aren’t expected for at least two weeks.

Authorities said Bowers suffered from a schizo-affective disorder that gave him grandiose and fantastic delusions. His mother, Sharon Bowers, 60, of Perris, told reporters her son was fine when he took his psychotropic medication, but threatening without it.

Bowers had a criminal record dating to 1986, and had been in and out of state mental health hospitals.

He picked up the truckload of powdered milk in Modesto Tuesday and was supposed to deliver it to North Dakota. Instead, he drove his 18-wheeler into the Capitol building, severely damaging the south porch but injuring no one but himself.

On Friday, the California Highway Patrol released tapes of frantic 911 calls to and from dispatchers after Bowers’ truck accelerated across the Capitol lawn, lodged between two ornate concrete-and-steel pillars, and erupted in flames shortly after 9 p.m. as the state Assembly was adjourning for the night.

The truck’s tires and hundreds of cans of powdered milk in the trailer began exploding, leading witnesses to falsely believe the truck was packed with explosives.

Grainy surveillance videos show the truck’s approaching headlights before it wedges between the Capitol’s pillars and explodes in a ball of flame that momentarily whites out the camera’s eye.

SACRAMENTO — Saying insolvency was no excuse, state regulators slapped California’s two largest utilities with an order Friday barring them from cutting off power to the 25 million people they serve.

The Public Utilities Commission order lasts at least until a Jan. 29 hearing. But it didn’t erase the possibility of more rolling blackouts ordered by managers of the state power grid.

Power authorities were cautiously optimistic they could avert more of the random blackouts that have snarled traffic and disrupted lives across the northern half of the state. But they issued no guarantees the lights would stay on this weekend.

“Things will be tight,” said Jim Detmers, managing director of Independent System Operator, which manages the grid.

Effects of the escalating crisis spread through the state’s economy, threatening to push up prices for commodities from gasoline to milk and forcing manufacturers to shut down for hours or days at a time for lack of electricity.

Miller Brewing Co. halted production at its brewery in Irwindale on Friday and California Steel Industries Inc. in Fontana closed its plant and idled most of its 1,000 workers for the day. Textron Aerospace Fasteners in Santa Ana sent 400 employees home for the day with half-pay.

The state’s main gasoline pipeline is running only part of the day, threatening supplies to airports and service stations and prompting warnings that prices will start to climb.

Standard & Poors put the state’s bonds on credit watch Friday, reflecting a lack of investor confidence in California’s ability to dig its way out of the crisis.

In a stopgap rescue effort, Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill Friday that frees $400 million for the state to buy power on the open market and sell it to utilities. The Department of Finance reported spending $7.9 million in taxpayer money buying power for the statewide grid Thursday under a previous authorization.

Nobody the state plan it would do more than help California squeeze through until the Legislature adopts a more comprehensive rescue. Assemblywoman Sarah Reyes called it a Band-Aid for “a bleeding body.”

Random blackouts of about two hours swept across Northern California on Wednesday and Thursday – the culmination of a crisis that has left the state’s two biggest utilities on the verge of bankruptcy.

Southern California has been spared so far, partly because of the layout of the power grid. Los Angeles has a municipal utility with its own power sources, and a few other areas are similarly protected.

The crisis peaked when soaring natural gas prices and a shortage of hydroelectric power drove up the wholesale price of energy. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Edison Co. – prevented by a flawed deregulation effort from raising prices to cover their costs – are unable to buy power on credit. They estimate their debt at more than $11 billion.

The power mess also has been complicated by soaring natural gas prices, a shortage of hydroelectricity for sale, power delivery problems and a number of power plants shut down for repairs and maintenance.

While the rolling blackouts get the headlines, most of the damage to business is coming from agreements big customers have made with the utilities. In exchange for lower rates, some 1,200 companies have agreed to let the power companies shut them down when electricity runs short.

Throughout the state, businesses have been forced to turn off the switch, with no indication of when the crisis will pass.

SoCal Edison and PG&E both warned this week that they might cut service beginning Saturday. PG&E also told state officials it would use only the power it produces itself beginning Saturday – not nearly enough power for the 14 million people it serves.

The PUC responded with the temporary induction, guaranteeing the utilities “will not and may not abandon service to customers,” Chairwoman Loretta Lynch said. She said the panel’s role was to “preserve the public’s safety.”

In other developments:

• The Senate Energy Committee considered long-term contract legislation, which would let the state deal with electricity wholesalers to buy power at about one-fifth the current market rate. The power would be resold to consumers, through the utilities.

• Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, calling California’s power supply “precarious,” issued an order requiring companies to continue shipping natural gas into California. The action was taken to ensure that utilities will not be cut off by natural gas suppliers.

CHICAGO — The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow-PUSH Coalition said Friday it paid $35,000 in “severance pay” to the woman he had a child with in an extramarital affair.

Members of the board also voted unanimously not to entertain any thought of Jackson resigning his leadership of the civil-rights group over the extramarital affair, said James Meeks, a Chicago pastor who is second-in-command.

Meeks said the group made payments to Karin Stanford, former head of the group’s Washington office, when she moved to Los Angeles, where she now lives with her 20-month-old daughter. Meeks denied reports of other payments to Stanford.

“We do not pay her any monthly compensation,” Meeks said. “Number two, we are not buying her – nor are we paying for – a house.”

Earlier in the day, Rainbow-PUSH spokesman John Scanlon said Stanford received the $35,000 in two payments from Rainbow-PUSH – $20,000 in moving expenses and a $15,000 advance on a contract to do consulting for the organization.

A spokeswoman cut off the news conference about the payments after only a few questions from reporters. Meeks said the organization’s finance and budget committee would eventually give board members a more extensive written report about the $35,000.

He raised questions about the timing of the story’s being leaked to the National Enquirer. He said it appeared to be a deliberate attempt to silence Jackson’s protests of the presidential election results in Florida.

“We think that there is something awfully suspicious about the timing of this 2-year-old story,” Meeks said, noting that it broke three days before Jackson was to help lead a rally Saturday in Tallahassee, Fla. Meeks said he did not know who could be behind the alleged plot to silence Jackson.

Rainbow-PUSH officials said it is unlikely that Jackson will attend the rally.

“We need him,” said the Rev. Willie Barrow, co-founder of the coalition.

“We cannot afford to have Rev. Jackson on the sidelines for an undetermined time.”

Jackson released a statement early Thursday about the affair and child after learning that the Enquirer planned to run a story. In the statement, he apologized and asked for time with his family to deal with the matter.

Jackson, 59, and his wife, Jackie, have been married for 38 years and have five children.

Meeks said the board has agreed to honor Jackson’s request for time away.

Jackson will attend a service at Meeks’ Salem Baptist on Sunday and will also attend Rainbow-PUSH’s annual Wall Street conference in New York next week, Meeks said. The conference is aimed at increasing minority involvement in business and investing.

Meeks said Jackson got a phone call of support from President Clinton, whom Jackson counseled after Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Federal officials are considering a closed-circuit telecast of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh’s execution because of the large number of victims and relatives who might want to watch him die.

McVeigh is scheduled to die by injection May 16 at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., for blowing up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995.

Eight seats at the prison are open for victims to witness the execution, and the government is sending out letters to 1,100 people asking if they want to attend.

The number of potential witnesses dwarfs those in other cases, and all options are being considered, including closed-circuit television, federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman Dan Dunne said.

Eight bombing survivors have asked attorney Karen Howick of Oklahoma City to go to court if necessary to get the closed-circuit telecast. Howick said there is a good chance the government will agree if enough victims are interested.

She said that she knows of no execution in the United States that was shown over closed-circuit television, but no law forbids it.

It was Howick who persuaded Congress to allow McVeigh’s Denver trial to be broadcast in an Oklahoma courtroom for victims’ relatives.

McVeigh is allowed execution seats for two attorneys, a spiritual adviser and three adult family members or friends. The government will have a few seats and the media will be given 10.

McVeigh has halted his appeals and has until mid-February to file a request for clemency from the president.

He would be first inmate put to death by the federal government since 1963.

McVeigh attorney Nathan Chambers said he and his client have taken no position on a possible telecast. “It’s an interesting issue,” he said. “If someone makes a formal application to do that, we’ll address that.”

WASHINGTON — George W. Bush proclaimed himself ready on Friday to accept “with pride” and “with honor” the job of commander in chief. He also made plans to quickly begin pushing his agenda once he takes the oath as the nation’s 43rd president.

Even a forecast of rain turning to sleet for Saturday’s ceremonies did little to dampen Bush’s spirits as he moved buoyantly from one celebratory event to another and prepared to hit the dance floor with wife, Laura, at an evening “Black Tie and Boots” ball honoring Texans.

Aides said Bush would waste little time in beginning to exercise his presidential powers.

He may act as early as Saturday to issue an executive order to block or delay a variety of President Clinton’s executive orders and last-minute rules, transition aides said.

Among his first official acts: formally submitting the nominations of his Cabinet to the Senate.

Bush set aside much of the first week of his presidency to focus on education, including a Tuesday ceremony at the White House to submit his educational package to Congress.

For most of Friday, Bush accepted second billing – first at an event honoring American writers hosted by Laura Bush and later at a preinaugural celebration for veterans presided over by Vice President-elect Dick Cheney.

At the writers’ event, Bush said of his wife, a former librarian and school teacher: “Her love for books is real, her love for children is real and my love for her is real.”

Later at the salute to veterans, Cheney, who was secretary of defense during the Persian Gulf War, said that of all the duties he will assume when he is sworn in Saturday, “none is greater than preparing our military for the challenges and dangers to come.”

Bush, in brief remarks to the same group, pledged, “We will make sure our soldiers are well-paid and well-housed.”

Looking forward to Saturday’s ceremony, Bush said he was ready to “to become the commander in chief of the greatest nation. ... I accept that honor with pride, I accept that honor with purpose.”

In an early evening appearance at a youth concert with retired Gen. Colin Powell, his choice for secretary of state, Bush proclaimed that he and Powell would “work hard to make sure that the world is more peaceful. But we’re also going to work hard to make sure the great potential and promise of America reaches through every neighborhood and every state all across this great land.”

Bush also planned to get in a final round of practice on his inaugural address.

In the address, “he’s going to talk about the unity of America,” said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer. While not referring to his narrow margin of victory, Bush will make a fresh appeal for unity, Fleischer said. “It’s the same speech he would be giving whether he won with a landslide or a narrow vote.”

Asked whether Bush would stay in his limousine for the inaugural parade or walk part of the route, Fleischer said, “That could depend somewhat on the weather.”

The National Weather Service’s forecast for Saturday called for a nearly 100 percent chance of precipitation. With that forecast for a wintry mix of rain, sleet and snow, inaugural officials considered moving the swearing-in ceremony inside the Capitol. But Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., chairman of the congressional inaugural committee, said it seemed likely the ceremony would be held outdoors.

Aides said Bush was poised to begin signing executive orders, some of them dealing with housekeeping issues but others aimed at a rash of eleventh-hour rules and regulations issued by Clinton.

All of these Clinton orders, ranging from new environmental regulations to new guidelines for managed care programs, are under scrutiny.

Rather than trying to pick them off one at a time, Bush is likely to issue a moratorium that would block for now any new regulations from being printed in the Federal Register, advisers said.

That would essentially freeze in place the most recent of Clinton’s executive orders since most rules can’t take effect until they’ve appeared in the Federal Register for a certain period of time.

Fleischer, Bush’s spokesman, said such a moratorium “is under review and it very well may happen,” possibly as soon as Saturday. Other Bush aides cautioned against expecting any major assaults on Clinton’s policies on a day on which Bush hopes to emphasize national unity.

Then-President Ronald Reagan used a similar technique in 1981 to block scores of last-minute executive orders by his predecessor, Democrat Jimmy Carter.

When he took office in 1993, Clinton moved quickly to block several orders that Bush’s father, George Bush, had put in place in the closing days of his administration.

Some Bush advisers suggested that the younger Bush might gleefully move to reimpose some of those blocked orders — including one that would have required federal contractors to inform nonunion members of their rights, including refunds of any dues withheld from their paychecks.

Meanwhile, a new dispute flared over abortion issues after Laura Bush said Friday that while she thinks more can be done to limit the number of abortions, she does not believe the landmark Roe v. Wade pro-abortion rights ruling should be undone.

“No, I don’t think it should be overturned,” she said on NBC’s “Today” show.

Her husband has said he believes the ruling was wrong. During the campaign, he suggested he would like to see it overturned — but also indicted he would not take the lead in such an effort.

Fleischer declined to comment on Laura Bush’s remarks, saying they were her “personal views.” As for the president-elect, Fleischer said, “he’s made it clear throughout the campaign: he’s pro life.” Fleischer reiterated, as he has before, that Bush favored a number of initiatives “that can make abortion more rare.” Overturning Roe v. Wade is not on the list.

EUGENE, Ore.— Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley build from the ground up – from the ground itself, in fact.

On forested land outside Cottage Grove, they have built cob cottages, courtyards, garden walls, benches and ovens, by themselves and with their students.

The structures are rustic, to be sure – earthen brown, thick-walled, hand-shaped, with a hint of both the gnomish and the prehistoric.

So named by the British several hundred years ago, cob is a building material of earth, straw, sand and water (no corn involved).

It’s mixed with the feet and hand-shaped into rounded lumps known in Old English as cobs, which then are sculpted into load-bearing walls.

A cob structure retains this hand-shaped curvature, unlike an adobe house built of earthen bricks and mortar.

Evans and Smiley are cob evangelists, of a sort. Their Cob Cottage Co., founded with partner Michael Smith, is considered an authority on the subject among natural-building proponents.

The company’s second book on cob building will come out next year.

Since 1993, the couple have held more than 80 cob workshops in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, teaching more than 1,000 people that mud dance of mixing cob and the joys of communal building.

Cob construction combines their fields of expertise. Evans is a Welsh-born architect, while Smiley is trained as a recreational therapist.

“I’ve focused on the health aspects of people working together, kind of like an Amish barn-raising type of approach, and the sense of community, of people working together and how empowering it is for people to build their own cottage,” Smiley said.

On a sunny morning in their cob cottage, over tea, Evans and Smiley explain how they came to build with earth.

“As you can probably tell, I’m British,” Evans lilts. “I’m from Wales, and cob is indigenous where I’m from.”

Living in the Northwest for more than two decades, watching log trucks roll by, inspired him to investigate alternative building materials, which reminded him of his homeland.

In the 1980s, Evans and Smiley went to the British Isles to do research on cob houses that were hundreds of years old, despite facing rougher winters than those in the Northwest. They liked what they saw.

“We built a very experimental little cob place in the late ’80s,” Evans said. “We didn’t tell anybody, because we were very unsure as to how it would fare in the Northwestern climate.”

Pleased with the results, in 1993 they built the more elaborate structure they’re sitting in now. Built on a stone foundation, the cob walls are two stories high and 1 1/2 to 2 feet thick.

Evans explains the construction: “You make mud out of your soil, and straw and water. ... You tread it with your feet, or with a machine; some people use a tractor.

“You take it in forkfuls or handfuls and make earthen balls called cobs – the size of a lump you can get both hands around – and you slap them on the wall.”

Windows and door shapes are molded to allow space for frames and glass, he said, and several styles of roof are compatible.

“If you want, you make an earthen floor of a very similar mixture,” he said, indicating the smoothed, chocolate-brown floor beneath our feet.

The cottage took about five months to complete, from June to November. “Technically, it’s not a house; it’s a garden cottage,” he stresses. A large main house sits beside the cob compound, which has no bathroom, for one thing.

The cottage’s sitting room has built-in cob bookshelves, nooks and a wide, low bench covered with brightly colored cushions, plus a table and chairs besides. It shares the downstairs with a cozy kitchen. The upstairs contains a bed, dresser and separate office space.

Most of the noncob materials are recyclables. The beams, framing and some furniture are made of salvaged wood: madrone, Pacific yew, Pacific dogwood, cedar.

The kitchen counters are made of thick, salvaged cutting boards and salvaged ceramic tile worked into a mosaic.

The cottage has electricity and running water; the pipes and wires are molded in the earth walls. With floor-to-ceiling windows facing south, the cob walls and floor absorb some solar heat during the day. A wood-burning stove provides heat in winter.

All of this is packed into a snug 119 square feet. “Round feet,” Evans corrects.

California’s utilities – PG&E and Southern California Edison – blame their problems on the state’s 1996 deregulation plan, which was supposed to lead to lower rates for consumers. Under the plan, utilities were forced to sell their power plants and buy electricity from companies like Duke Energy Corp.

But wholesale prices for electricity have soared and rate caps imposed under deregulation prevent utilities from passing on those costs to customers.

PG&E and SoCal Edison, which estimate they have lost more than $11 billion, have defaulted on millions in dollars in bills and warned they’re headed toward bankruptcy.

The situation has been a boon to power generators such as Duke and Dynegy Inc., which have the energy California lacks and which have benefited from soaring wholesale energy costs.

Stocks of companies such as Ballard Power Systems Inc. and FuelCell Energy Inc., which make alternative forms of energy, are also up on hopes they’ll also profit from California’s problems.

The list of stock market losers, however, could get much longer as the power woes persist.

High power prices and energy blackouts also stand to pinch the weakened profits of the many technology companies based in California.

“If consumers are faced with high energy costs in California and reduce their spending, that can have a big impact on the U.S. economy because it is such a large state,” said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer at First Albany Corp.

“If businesses have problems and have to shut down every other day, there can be meaningful reduction in supplies sent to other parts of the country.”

Banks and financial institutions also could be hurt, Johnson said, if PG&E or SoCal Edison go bankrupt.

“It can create real money problems,” Johnson said.

But Wall Street has reaffirmed the winners and losers. PG&E lost 11.9 percent for the week, closing at $10.19. Edison, the parent of SoCal Edison, managed to rise 3.6 percent, ending the week at $8.94.

Duke also got a boost from a strong earnings report this past week, announcing results that beat Wall Street expectations by a solid 6 cents a share.

Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke benefited handsomely from the energy price spike because it owns four California power plants that generate with a total capacity of 3,300 megawatts, enough to supply nearly 500,000 homes.

Whether the stock market gains for the likes of Duke and FuelCell and the losses for PG&E and Edison hold up will rest on how the power crisis is resolved.

“It depends on whether or not the generators end up signing long term contracts and whether the (large) margins they were able to achieve in 2000 are sustainable,” said Paul Fremont, electric utility analyst for Jefferies & Co.

However, Duke and its competitors, such as Reliant, Dynegy and Southern Energy, which on Friday became Mirant Corp., might not be able to count on California for big profit margins in the future, Fremont said.

They would lose if the state moved back toward more regulation – for example, if legislators capped the prices generators can charge for supplying power to California utilities.

NEW YORK — Investors, more cautious than relieved after a week of earnings news that turned out better than expected, took profits Friday and sent stocks mostly lower.

Blue chips tumbled after Home Depot warned of disappointing quarterly results. Tech stocks advanced, but disappointing revenues from Sun Microsystems helped offset the gains in the Nasdaq composite index. Analysts downplayed the declines, noting they occurred at the end of a healthy week, particularly for the tech sector.

“The market is somewhat overbought now,” said Charles Pradilla, chief investment strategist at SG Cowen Securities. “The market is ready for some pullback, some consolidation and profit-taking. We’re not out of the woods yet, but I don’t see a huge dive from here.”

By the time this summer rolls around, Shaun Paga should know every blade of grass on Witter Field like the back of his hand.

Paga spent most of his afternoons this fall running around the lawn as a member of the Cal football team, which practices on Witter during the season. Paga now roams the turf as a captain of the Golden Bear rugby squad. By the way, each of Paga’s four previous rugby seasons resulted in a national championship for the Bears, extending the Cal streak to 10 straight titles.

Born in Auckland, New Zealand, Paga comes from a rugby family. But they moved to the U.S. when Paga was nine years old, and football became his first love. He didn’t take up rugby until a trip back to New Zealand, where rugby is the national sport, during his junior year in high school. He joined a local team upon his return, and quickly became a premier player.

Recruited to play football by Boise State and Idaho out of Menlo-Atherton High School, Paga chose instead to walk on at Cal, making the team as a special teams player as a freshman and a reserve linebacker as a sophomore. But it was his contribution to the Cal rugby program as a loose forward that attracted the most attention.

“Rugby is in his blood, and he happens to be a very gifted, explosive athlete,” says head coach Jack Clark. “He’s a courageous player, and he’s always there in important moments in the match.”

Paga, 23, returned to the Cal football program for the 2000 season after taking two years off to concentrate on rugby. That dedication to rugby resulted in selection to the Eagles, the U.S. national team, and a trip to Ireland for Rugby World Cup 1999, where he played in all three of the Eagles’ matches, including one against eventual champion Australia.

“That’s really why I left football, that opportunity to represent your country and play in an international tournament, against the best players in the world,” Paga says. “It was a great honor, and something really special to me.”

The football staff accepted Paga’s decision to devote himself to rugby once he explained what he could accomplish.

“I think they understood that I had a great opportunity in rugby,” he says. “They definitely wanted me to come back, though.”

Paga’s return to the football team for his senior season was welcomed by both players and coaches. The Bears’ projected starting rush end, Wayne Hunter, transferred out of Cal, and the position was wide open going into fall camp. Paga, who had never played defensive line, was thrown into the mix.

“I didn’t know him very well, and I had never seen him play football or rugby,” says Cal defensive line coach Bill Dutton, who came to Cal program during Paga’s absence. “But (defensive coordinator) Lyle Setencich and (head coach) Tom Holmoe had very positive things to say about him. They said he was very competitive and had a real desire to play. He had to get on-the-job training, and he was the first one on the field for practice every day and spent hours and hours in the film room.”

Paga quickly went about learning his new position, and he had help from the team’s two defensive stars, defensive end Andre Carter and tackle Jacob Waasdorp.

“Andre and Jacob helped me get up to speed, because I had never played defensive end before,” Paga says. “They were very instructive and helpful.”

After a strong showing at camp, Paga was ready to play when the season started. He started the Bears’ first game against Utah, and he and sophomore Tully Banta-Cain waged a battle for playing time the entire season. Dutton says the competition brought out the best in both players.

“I told them every week that whoever graded out the best would start, and they both went down deep into their gut-bucket every week in practice,” Dutton says. “Without Shaun, Tully wouldn’t have been the same player he was.”

The competition went right down to the final game against Stanford, and both players had their best game of the season that day, according to Dutton.

“I always wanted to come back and play my last year, and I was lucky to come back when there was an opening,” Paga says.

Paga says the two sports are very comparable, which makes sense. Football’s roots come from rugby, and they involve many of the same skills and physical demands.

“They’re both really competitive games. Rugby’s definitely more cardiovascular, since there aren’t so many stoppages in play. You have to be fitter, so you’re a little lighter,” Paga says. “But football’s probably a little more physical, so you come back and you’re ready to hit harder.”

Dutton feels Paga’s two years away from football were offset by the benefits of playing rugby at its highest level.

“Rugby gave him a sense of confidence as an athlete to perform, and he brought that with him into football,” he says.

Both of Paga’s coaches think he can continue with their own sport, a choice he has yet to make.

“Shaun has the ability to play professional rugby overseas if he chooses,” Clark says. “He just has to work on a few of his skills.”

“With all of the football available to us here, there could definitely be a spot for him somewhere,” Dutton says.

When asked which sport he thinks will attract him after college, Paga laughs.

“I’d say I’m more of a football player. When you get to the international level, most of the guys have been playing since they were little kids. I’m still learning the game on a lot of levels.”

Habitot Children’s Museum “Back to the Farm.”An interactive exhibit gives children the chance to wiggle through tunnels like an earthworm, look into a mirrored fish pond, don farm animal costumes, ride on a John Deere tractor and more. $4 adults; $6 children age 7 and under; $3 for each additional child age 7 and under. Monday and Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Tuesday and Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Kittredge Street and Shattuck Avenue 647-1111 or www.habitot.org

Judah L. Magnes Museum “Telling Time: To Everything There Is A Season” Through May, 2002 An exhibit structured around the seasons of the year and the seasons of life with objects ranging from the sacred and the secular, to the provocative and the whimsical. “Second Annual Richard Nagler Competition for Excellence in Jewish Photography” Through Feb., 2001. Featuring the work of Claudia Nierman, Jason Francisco, Fleming Lunsford, and others. 2911 Russell St. 549-6950

UC Berkeley Art Museum “Tacita Dean/MATRIX 189 Banewl” through Jan. 28. A film instillation by British conceptual artist Tacita Dean of the total solar eclipse of Aug. 11, 1999. “The Mule Train: A Journey of Hope Remembered,” through March 26. An exhibit of black and white photographs that capture the fears and faith of those who traveled from Marks, Mississippi to Washington, D.C. ,with mule-drawn wagons to attend the Poor People's Campaign in December, 1967. $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; free children age 12 and under; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. 642-0808.

The Asian Galleries “Art of the Sung: Court and Monastery,” open-ended. A display of early Chinese works from the permanent collection. “Chinese Ceramics and Bronzes: The First 3,000 Years,” open-ended. “Works on Extended Loan from Warren King,” open-ended. “Three Towers of Han,” open-ended. $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; free children age 12 and under; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 642-0808

UC Berkeley Museum of

Paleontology Lobby, Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” ongoing. A 20 by 40-foot replica of the fearsome dinosaur made from casts of bones of the most complete T. Rex skeleton yet excavated. When unearthed in Montana, the bones were all lying in place with only a small piece of the tailbone missing.

“Pteranodon” A suspended skeleton of a flying reptile with a wingspan of 22-23 feet. The Pteranodon lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Free. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 642-1821

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology “Approaching a Century of Anthropology: The Phoebe Hearst Museum,” open-ended. This new permanent installation will introduce visitors to major topics in the museum’s history.“Ishi and the Invention of Yahi Culture,” ongoing.This exhibit documents the culture of the Yahi Indians of California as described and demonstrated from 1911 to 1916 by Ishi, the last surviving member of the tribe. $2 general; $1 seniors; $.50 children age 17 and under; free on Thursdays. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way and College Ave. 643-7648

Lawrence Hall of Science “Math Rules!” Ongoing. A math exhibit of hands-on problem-solving stations, each with a different mathematical challenge.“Within the Human Brain” Ongoing. Visitors test their cranial nerves, play skeeball, master mazes, match musical tones and construct stories inside a simulated “rat cage” of learning experiments. “Vision,” Jan. 20 - April 15, 2001. Get a very close look at how the eyes and brain work together to focus light, perceive color and motion, and process information. “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza. $7 for adults; $5 for children 5-18; $3 for children 3-4. 642-5132

Holt Planetarium Programs are recommended for age 8 and up; children under age 6 will not be admitted. $2 in addition to regular museum admission. “Constellations Tonight” Ongoing. Using a simple star map, learn to identify the most prominent constellations for the season in the planetarium sky. Daily, 3:30 p.m. $7 general; $5 seniors, students, disabled, and youths age 7 to 18; $3 children age 3 to 5 ; free children age 2 and younger. Daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley 642-5132 or www.lhs.berkeley.edu

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership

“Sweet Honey” Jan. 26, 8 p.m. This Grammy award-winning African American female a cappella ensemble has deep musical roots in the sacred music of the black church including spirituals, hymns, gospel, as well as jazz and blues. Their words will also be interpreted in American Sign Language. $25 - $27.50 Zellerbach Hall UC Berkeley 642-9988

“Magnetic North” Six programs of experimental Canadian video from the past 30 years that range from documentary to conceptual art. In all, 40 tapes from 46 artists will be shown on six Wednesday evenings. Through Feb. 28. $7. Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch) 642-1412

Exhibits

Berkeley Historical Society “Berkeley’s Ethnic Heritage.” An overview of the rich cultural diversity of the city and the contribution of individuals and minority groups to it’s history and development. Thursday through Saturday, 1 – 4 p.m. Free. 1931 Center St. 848-0181

Drawings & Watercolor Paintings of Daniel Hitkov Hitkov is a young Bulgarian artist whose subjects are the real and unreal in nature, people and things. Through Feb. 12. Red Cafe 1941 University Ave. 843-7230

“Trees With Frosting” Stevie Famulari decorates landscapes with sugar and frosting, making her artwork edible and changeable by viewers. This particular display will remain for two months. Through February Skapades Hair Salon 1971 Shattuck Ave. 251-8080 or steviesart@hotmail.com

“Dorchester Days,” the photographs of Eugene Richards is a collection of pictures portraying the poverty, racial tension, crime and violence prevalent in Richards’ hometown of Dorchester, Massachusetts in the 1970s. Jan. 25 - April 6; Opening reception Jan. 25, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.; Public lecture and screening of “but, the day came,” a film written, produced and directed by Richards, Jan. 26, 7 p.m. UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism 121 North Gate Hall #5860 642-3383

Holloway Poetry Reading Series Jan. 23, 8 p.m. Tony Lopez, author of numerous books of poetry including “A Theory of Surplus Labour,” “Stress Management,” and “False Memory,” reads with Trane Devore, author of “series/mnemonic.” as party of this series of free readings sponsored by the Department of English at UC Berkeley. Reading followed by reception. Maude Fife Room (315) Wheeler Hall UC Berkeley 653-2439

Tours

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. 848-7800

The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley. 486-0623

Berkeley Historical Society Slide Lecture & Booksigning Series Sundays, 3 - 5 p.m. $10 donation requested Jan. 28: “The Finns in Berkeley and Co-op Beginnings,” a panel discussion on Finnish and Co-op history; March 11: Director of Berkeley’s International House, Joe Lurie, will show a video and dicuss the history and struggle to open the I-House 70 years ago. Berkeley Historical Center Veterans Memorial Building 1931 Center St. 848-0181

“Great Decisions” Foreign Policy Association Lectures Series Tuesdays, 10 a.m. - Noon, Feb. 13 - April 3; An annual program featuring specialists in the field of national foreign policy, many from University of California. Goal is to inform the public on major policy issues and receive feedback from the public. $5 per session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple. Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 526-2925

City Commons Club Social Hour & Speaker Series Fridays, 11:15 a.m., Through 26; Jan. 19: “Evidence-Based Practice - How It May Effect You,” Eileen Gambrill, professor of social welfare at UC Berkeley; Jan. 26: “The Aftermath of the National Election,” Susan Rasky, senior lecturer at the graduate school of journalism at UC Berkeley. Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 848-3533

Friday January 19, 2001

AC Transit does indeed ignore riders needs

Editor:

You sure hit a nerve with your AC Transit cover story of January 4. It is common practice to omit runs on the line 64 that goes from Merritt College, through Montclair (near my home) and into Berkeley when there is a shortage of drivers. Family members have been late for work many times because a bus fails to arrives.

In addition I had a distressing experience when taking the bus while my car was in the shop. While waiting at Rockridge BART I noticed a blind woman with her guide dog struggling to make sense of her surroundings. In case you have never caught a bus at Rockridge, let me explain that buses wander into the general area, but do not stop at any specific place.

Sometimes they load in the middle of the street. Unlike BART, they do not announce what bus they are or where they are going.

I learned the woman was looking for the line 51 and she asked if it would stop near her. I knew it could stop just about anywhere in a half block area, so when my bus came I asked if he had any kind of radio to contact the line 51 and let the driver know someone needed assistance. His response was to tell me to pay attention to how I was inserting my transfer and to mind my own business.

Instead of getting off the bus right away to help her, I continued to work, not wanting to be half an hour late by waiting for the next bus. I still feel guilty about it.

We have reported problems and written letters but we never have received a response or apology. A friend, who knows I am writing this letter, has asked me to mention the driver who told a wheelchair-abled passenger there was no room on his bus (even though there was). The driver just didn't want to be bothered with helping the him on board.

Andrea Daniel

Oakland

Clarification of ADA statement

Editor:

I read Robert Lauriston’s letter titled “Liars can take pets anywhere,” in the Jan. 17 issue, and thought it important to clarify a statement made therein.

Mr. Lauriston writes: “As Minasian would have it, anyone wishing to bring a pet into a restaurant need only claim they are disabled and that their pet is a service animal.”

California Penal Code Section 365.7 states that “...Any person who knowingly and fraudulently represents himself or herself...to be the owner or trainer of any canine...identified as a guide, signal, or service dog...shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by both that fine and imprisonment.”

Business owners in Berkeley have a right to expect diligent enforcement of this provision by the Berkeley Police Department, and those who would seeks to gain entry to public establishments while misrepresenting their pets as service dogs should be forewarned of the serious consequences.

Michael Minasian

Berkeley

Good intentions are taken to an absurd level

Editor:

Thanks for the January 12 article “Service Animals Provoke Quandary.” This part of the A.D.A. is an example of good intentions taken to an absurd level.

Trained seeing-eye dogs have been used by the blind for decades and the health and safety laws regarding dogs have correctly been waived for these situations, and it’s worked because the need is constant and obvious, and the frequency is modest.

Unfortunately, “service animals” under A.D.A. has come to mean that one group of people gets to bring their pets into virtually any indoor public place and the health, safety and comfort of others is legally disregarded. I have observed “service animals” in various places here in the East Bay and they are indeed pets. Rationalizations abound for “service animals” in public indoor places but factually if a person falls out of a wheelchair, another person, not a dog, will remedy the situation.

If a person has a seizure a fellow human, not a dog, will place an object between the teeth and phone for medical help. If a disabled person in our library drops a pen or book, it is vastly easier and quicker if a staff person or patron picks up the object. And so on.

If a disabled person wants to have a dog, great! If the dog is a comfort in that person’s home, better yet, however there are other people here in our community and the restrictions on dogs are quite necessary. Why can’t dogs go anywhere? After all, dog is god spelled backward, for some folks their dogs are even a “co-pilot.” And isn’t it a nice gesture to let the disabled have their pets in indoor public places?

Tens of thousands of people are injured yearly, some severely, from bites, scratches and knockdowns by dogs. Even today we still caution our children about dogs as a single bite can be fatal in the case of rabies. Hundreds of thousands of people suffer respiratory and/or skin allergies from the skin and fur of dogs. Symptoms or exposure include cold-like respiratory problems, rashes and asthma.

The allergens from dogs can remain in the indoor environment for hours or days after the animal has left. Md.’s treating such allergies always advise avoidance over drugs, but this is increasingly difficult, with frequent encounters with “service animals.”

For millions, dogs are intrusive, smelly nuisances, best avoided - they have fecal matter on both ends, the mouth parts may have been in contact with rotting garbage or dead animals, the fur can be laced with poison oak, herbicides, pesticides, ticks and fleas. Dogs are, after all, just dogs and they can make us ill. I certainly want to avoid restaurants where there are animals.

The A.D.A. has generally been good for our country and good for my immediate family. My partner is in a wheelchair and better access has helped. The “service animal” part of the A.D.A. should be changed to give special access only to seeing-eye dogs.

Recently an uncaged, 200 pound plus pig was allowed in the cabin of a U.S. Airways flight. The airline didn’t want the pig onboard, but was afraid of a lawsuit under the “service animal” section of the A.D.A.

The pig provided “emotional support” for it’s owners, they claimed; it also roamed around, made loud noises and defecated. What of the emotional well-being and health of the other people on board?

John Ayra

Berkeley

Green with envy, or Green with indigestion?

Editor:

It’s not much of a surprise that the Green Party letter (well, advertisement) you ran on Wednesday betrays the same cluelessness we’ve come to expect from the party whose slogan ought to be “Not just a symbolic vote anymore – now we're doing real damage.”

Green Party members seem determined to ignore the differences between the European parliamentary system, in which Greens have sometimes been able to secure a share of power (despite the repugnance of many Greens for actual participation in government), and the presidential system in the United States, which has thwarted power-sharing.

In a nutshell: While in a parliamentary system chief executives serve at the pleasure of a legislative body, in the states we chose them by periodic direct election (unless they're Democrats, in which case they need judicial approval as well).

While you can bargain in a parliamentary system, exchanging the votes of your party's legislature bloc for positions in the executive, no such negotiating is possible here. Any attempt to affect the outcome of a presidential election must take the form of "promise us something and we'll try to throw our support your way," which is how in previous elections Jesse Jackson tried to employ what muscle the Rainbow Coalition could muster.

Instead, while acknowledging they couldn't win, the Greens argued that the two parties were so disappointingly alike that the best thing their supporters could do was to help the Greens get enough votes to qualify for federal election funding, so they could run a "real" campaign in 2004.

With such a pathetic platform, it's not hard to see why they didn't come within spitting distance of their already minuscule 5 percent goal.

If the Green Party is ever going to recover from the the Nader candidacy devastation, they need to stop alienating their natural constituencies and proclaim their intention to only run candidates in races where there is some realistic hope of victory. (Meaning basically, for the foreseeable future of this very weak party, municipal offices and a handful of state legislature races where they can actually argue clear and tangible differences with the Democrats.)

The considerably wiser heads of the small, also left-wing New Party recognized the cause of the third-party dilemma three years ago, and sued to force all states to allow them to endorse candidates from other parties for offices for which they chose not to put forth a candidate.

In New York, for instance, the Liberal Party has their own line on the ballot, but lists major party candidates they've cross-endorsed for statewide races. Had they prevailed, smaller parties would have been able to run statewide and nationwide campaigns without having to be spoilers.

The New Party lost their case in a predicable split vote before the Supreme Court, the composition of which will be determined, should any vacancies occur, by the man Ralph Nader kept absurdly insisting was in practice indistinguishable from Al Gore.

Friday, Jan. 19

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program. 549-2970

“Evidence-Based Practice - How it May Effect You”

11:45 a.m. luncheon

12:30 p.m. speaker

Berkeley City Club

2315 Durant Ave.

Eileen Gambrill, professor in the department of social welfare at UC Berkeley with speak.

$11 - $12.25 with luncheon, $1 with coffee, students free

848-3533

Stagebridge Free Acting

& Storytelling

classes for Seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Call 444-4755 or

visit www.stagebridge.org

“Presidential Pardon for Leonard Peltier” prayer circle

Noon - 1:30 p.m.

Oakland Federal Building

Clay (between 12th & 14th)

Oakland

The Peltier Action Committee are asking President Clinton to pardon political prisoner Leonard Peltier. Today is the last day Clinton can pardon Peltier. The Oakland Federal building is located within walking distance of the 12th St. BART station.

Call 464-4534 or e-mail: thepac2000@hotmail.com

Saturday, Jan. 20

On Death & Dying

9 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Berkeley Buddhist Temple

2121 Channing Way (between Shattuck & Fulton)

Kathleen Gustin, Zen priest, and Rev. Ronald Nakasone of the Graduate Theological Union speak at this workshop designed to help those considering their own ending or that of loved ones.

$20 per person (box lunch included)

Call Ken Kaji, 601-5394

Rockridge Writers

3:30 - 5:30 p.m.

Spasso Coffeehouse

6021 College Ave.

Poets and writers meet to critique each other’s work. “Members’ work tends to be dark, humorous, surreal, or strange.”

e-mail: berkeleysappho@yahoo.com

Corinne Innis Reception

5 - 7 p.m.

Women’s Cancer Resource Center

3023 Shattuck Ave.

Paying homage to her subconscious, Innis uses rich colors in her acrylic paintings.

Glen Kitzenberger discusses what homeowners need to know before building or remodeling. Skip Wenz discusses the pros and cons of building an addition. Free

Call 525-7610

Free Puppet Shows

1:30 & 2:30 p.m.

Hall of Health

2230 Shattuck Ave.

The Kids on the Block, an award-winning educational puppet troupe, includes puppets with such conditions as cerebral palsy, blindness and Down syndrome.

Bengal Basin Seminar

3 p.m.

Warren Hall, Room 22

UC Berkeley

Part of the Third International India Bangladesh Symposium for reducing the impact of toxic chemicals on the Bengal Basin. With World Poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Call 841-3253

Flu shot clinic

10 a.m. - 2 p.m.

Safeway

5130 Broadway

Oakland

Flu vaccines for $12; Pneumonia vaccines for $25. Free for seniors covered by Medicare. Vaccinations for ages 13 and up.

Call 1-800-500-2400

Sunday, Jan. 21

Live Oak concert

7:30 p.m.

Berkeley Art Center

1275 Walnut St.

The music of J.S. Bach and Antonio Vivaldi played by the trio of Marvin Sanders, flute, Becky Lyman, harpsichord, and Alexander Kort, cello.

$8 - $10

Call 644-6893

Saying No To Power

10:30 a.m.

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center

1414 Walnut St. (at Rose)

Bill Mandel, author and activist talks about his new book.

$4 - $5

848-0237

Single Parents and Step

& Blended

Family Interfaith Fellowship

4 - 6 p.m.

Beth El Synagogue

2301 Vine St. (at Spruce)

An interfaith and very open group that welcomes parents and their children of all affiliations and orientations. This meetings discussion topics will be a supportive and advice oriented look at dating.

Monday, Jan. 22

Berkeley Rail Stop Community

Design Workshop

7 - 9 p.m.

West Berkeley Senior Center

1900 Sixth St.

The public is invited to suggest ideas and comment on plans for design-development at the rail stop/transit plaza area of West Berkeley. 644-6580

Urban Homelessness

& Public Policy Solutions

9 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Alumni House

UC Berkeley

This day-long conference will include key scholars, service providers, and policymakers in the homelessness field. Some of the subjects to be covered will be: Homeless population dynamics and policy implications, health issues in homelessness, and legal and political issues in homelessness. Free and open to the public.

For more info, visit: http://urbanpolicy.berkeley.edu/homeless.htm

Building or Remodeling?

7 - 9 p.m.

Building Education Center

812 Page St.

Glen Kitzenberger discusses what you need to know before building or remodeling.

Call 525-7610

Wishes Versus Reality

10 a.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

A discussion with Betty Goren.

Call 644-6107

Tuesday, Jan. 23

Berkeley Camera Club

7:30 p.m.

Northbrae Community Church

941 The Alameda

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips.

Call Wade, 531-8664

— compiled by

Chason Wainwright

PSR’s Annual Earl Lectures

9 a.m. - 10 p.m.

First Congregational Church of Berkeley

2345 Channing Way

Celebrating their 100th anniversary of lectures, this year will focus on Christian mission in a pluralistic age. This year there are 28 workshops and three panels of national religious leaders and scholars. Free

Call 849-8274

Elderly Mental Illness

1:30 - 3 p.m.

Alta Bates Summit Medical Center

Herrick Campus, CC Conference Room

2001 Dwight Way

Dr. Robert Dolgoff, Chief Psychiatrist at the Berkeley Therapy Institute will discuss the course of action to be taken when the best efforts of medical professionals no longer helps older folks with mental illnesses.

Call 869-6737

Blood Pressure for Seniors

9:30 - 11:30 a.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

With Alice Meyers.

Call 644-6107

Costs of Illness

1 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

Attorney Walter Rosen will discuss how to protect you home and savings from the financial effects of catastrophic illness.

Call 644-6107

Wednesday, Jan. 24

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling

Classes for Seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Oakland

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org

Thursday, Jan. 25

Spirits in the Time of AIDS

6 - 8 p.m.

Pro Arts Gallery

461 Ninth St.

Oakland

Pro Arts reception for the opening of their new exhibition seeking to expand the understanding of HIV and AIDS and the people who are affected by them.

Call 763-9425

Free “Quit Smoking” Class

5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

South Berkeley Senior Center

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees.

Orquesta D’Soul, a San Francisco based band, is hosting this benefit featuring the musical talents of local bay area women in salsa.

$8 in advance, $10 at the door

Call 849-2568 or visit www.lapena.org

Conversations in Commedia

7:30 p.m.

La Pena Cultural Center

3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince)

Mime Troupe vet and St. Stupid’s Day creator, Ed Holmes, and 84-year-old Bari Rolfe, a mime for over 30 years, give dialogues on satire.

$6 - $8

Call 849-2568

West Berkeley Project Area Commission

7 p.m.

West Berkeley Senior Center

1900 Sixth St.

Discussions will include review of the initial environmental study and recommendations on a request to establish a public market. Also, consideration of a petition requesting that diagonal parking and parking meters not be installed on Fifth St.

Take the Terror Out of Talking

12:10 - 1:10 p.m.

Department of Health Services

2151 Berkeley Way

State Health Toastmasters Club is hosting an open house to celebrate Toastmasters International Week and to kick-off the start of “Speechcraft,” a six-session workshop to help participants overcome nervousness and learn basic public speaking skills.

Call 649-7750

Jam Session

7 p.m.

Maurice’s Cafe

6038 Telegraph

Oakland

Call 653-6775

Friday, Jan. 26

Strong Women - Writers &

Heroes of Literature

1 - 3 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.

Call 549-2970

“The Aftermath of the National Election”

11:45 a.m. luncheon

12:30 p.m. speaker

Berkeley City Club

2315 Durant Ave.

Susan Rasky, senior lecturer at the graduate school of journalism at UC Berkeley will speak.

$11 - $12.25 with luncheon, $1 with coffee, students free

848-3533

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling

Classes for Seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Oakland

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org

Crisis in Colombia

7 p.m.

Berkeley UU Fellowship Hall

1924 Cedar (at Bonita)

As part of their “war on drugs,” the Colombian government is set to implement Plan Colombia, aided by military hardware and training from the U.S. Peter Dale Scott, UC Berkeley professor and Daniel de la Pava, of the Colombia Support Network will, will discuss the U.S. role in perpetuating the violence and how to organize to help.

$5 - $10 donation requested

Call 704-9608

Yiddish Conversation

1 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

With Allen Stross

Call 644-6107

Saturday, Jan. 27

Clori, Tirsi & e Fileno

8 p.m.

Crowden School

1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento)

Teatro Bacchino, the Bay Area’s Baroque Opera company, will be performing Handel’s story of jealousy in love. Pre-concert talk 45 minutes before the performance.

A special workshop for two - three year-olds to meet, pet, and feed rabbits, doves, and snakes.

$22 - $25, $10 for additional family members, registration required

Call 642-5134

Book Publishing Seminar

10 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Regent Press

6020-A Adeline St.

Mark Weiman presents an overview of the business of book publishing oriented towards the author considering self-publication. From page layout to promotion and distribution, Weiman will cover all practical aspects of independent book publishing.

Learn about new employment opportunities in travel in the 21st century. Class will include a look at salaries, travel benefits, necessary education and preparation required. Bring payment by check to the class.

$5.50 for California residents

Call Marty de Souto, 981-2931

Intuitive Healing

10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

1502 Tenth St.

Marcia Emery, Ph.D., will discuss the deeper meaning of illness, the way to tune into any body part to heal it and your intuitive X-ray or body scan ability.

$85

Call 526-5510

Sunday, Jan. 28

Clori, Tirsi & e Fileno

7 p.m.

Crowden School

1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento)

Teatro Bacchino, the Bay Area’s Baroque Opera company, will be performing Handel’s story of jealousy in love. Pre-concert talk 45 minutes before the performance.

$15 - $20

Call 658-3382

Reimagining Pacific Cities

6 - 8:30 p.m.

New Pacific Studio

1523 Hearst Ave.

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.

$10 per meeting

Call 849-0217

Finns in Berkeley and Co-op Beginnings

3 - 5 p.m.

Berkeley Historical Society

1931 Center St.

A panel discussion on Finnish and Co-op history and on the Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley.

$10 donation

Call 848-0181

Mediterranean Plant Life

3:30 p.m.

UC Botanical Garden

200 Centennial Drive

Peter Dallman, author of “Plant Life in the Mediterranean Regions of the World,” will motivate attendees to look closely at California native plants and experiment with dramatic and drought-tolerant species in their own gardens.

Call 643-2755

Rhythm & Muse Open Mike

2 p.m.

Berkeley Art Museum, Conference Room

2621 Durant (at Bowditch)

Poet Katharine Harer and jazz guitarist Joe Vance.

Call 527-9753

Monday, Jan. 29

Poetry with Nancy Wilson

2 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

Call 644-6107

Tuesday, Jan. 30

Berkeley Camera Club

7:30 p.m.

Northbrae Community Church

941 The Alameda

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips.

Call Wade, 531-8664

Digital Photography

1:30 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

With Allen Stross

Call 644-6107

Wednesday, Jan. 31

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra

8 p.m.

Zellerbach Hall

UC Berkeley

Featuring “Berkeley Images,” a world premiere by Jean-Pascal Beintus.

$10 - $35

Call 841-2800

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling

Classes for Seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Oakland

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org

Thursday, Feb. 1

Free “Quit Smoking” Class

5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

South Berkeley Senior Center

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees.

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us

Duomo Readings Open Mic.

6:30 - 9 p.m.

Cafe Firenze

2116 Shattuck Ave.

With featured poet John Rowe and host Randy Fingland.

644-0155

Hiking the California Desert

7 p.m.

Recreational Equipment, Inc.

1338 San Pablo Ave.

Steve Tabor of the conservation group Desert Survivors presents a slide-show of highlights from his reconnaissance trips along more than 400 miles of trail. Free

Call 527-7377

Berkeley Metaphysical Toastmasters Club

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.

2515 Hillegass Ave.

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.

Call 869-2547

Open Mic.

7 p.m.

Maurice’s Cafe

6038 Telegraph

Oakland

Call 653-6775

Friday, Feb. 2

Strong Women - Writers &

Heroes of Literature

1 - 3 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.

Call 549-2970

Allee der Kosmontauten

8 p.m.

Zellerbach Hall

UC Berkeley

Performance of Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz 1996 work in its West Coast premiere. Also features the film work of Elliot Caplan.

$20 - $42

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu

“A Night In Oakland”

8 p.m.

Alice Arts Center

1428 Alice St. (at 14th St.)

Oakland

Savage Jazz Dance Company launches their 2001 spring season along with the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra.

Experience the unusual rehearsal-reading format that lets the audience experience the collaboration between conductor, orchestra and composer in the Berkeley Symphony’s unique series presenting new works or works-in-progress by local Bay Area composers.

Miriam Chaya and Judy Montell discuss their Simchat Hochmah ceremony, which celebrates a woman’s transition from mid-life to her eldering years.

Call 848-0237 x127

“A Night In Oakland”

2 & 8 p.m.

Alice Arts Center

1428 Alice St. (at 14th St.)

Oakland

Savage Jazz Dance Company launches their 2001 spring season along with the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra.

$10 - $15

Call 496-6068 or visit www.savagejazz.org

Spiritual & Cultural Context of Mbira

8 p.m.

Shambhala Booksellers

2482 Telegraph Ave.

Berkeley native Erica Azim has played Shona mbira music for 30 years, and is the foremost mbira performer and recording artist in the U.S. The mbira has metal keys which are plucked with two thumbs and one forefinger, “creating relaxing yet invigorating polyphony and polyrhythms.” Free

Call 848-8443

Solving the East Bay Energy Crisis

3 p.m.

Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists

Fellowship Hall

1924 Cedar (at Bonita)

Barbara George of Women’s Energy Matters and a Utility Reform Network representative, Kris Worthington, Berkeley city council member, Ross Mirkarimi of the Green Party, and others will discuss the past and future of the energy situation in the East Bay, including possibilities of conservation, clean, renewable energy and municipally-owned public utilities.

Call 233-3175

Tuesday, Feb. 6

Berkeley Intelligent Conversation

7 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Jewish Community Center

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is sex, love, dating, and relationships in celebration of Valentine’s Day.

Call 527-5332

Berkeley Camera Club

7:30 p.m.

Northbrae Community Church

941 The Alameda

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips.

Call Wade, 531-8664

Wednesday, Feb. 7

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling

Classes for Seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Oakland

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org

Thursday, Feb. 8

Free “Quit Smoking” Class

5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

South Berkeley Senior Center

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees.

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us

Duomo Readings Open Mic.

6:30 - 9 p.m.

Cafe Firenze

2116 Shattuck Ave.

With featured poet Tom Odegard and host Dale Jensen.

644-0155

Great Mt. Diablo Day Hikes

7 p.m.

Recreational Equipment, Inc.

1338 San Pablo Ave.

Ken Lavin, former president of Mt. Diablo Interpretative Association, for a slide-show of his favorite day hikes in Mt. Diablo State Park.

Call 527-7377

Jam Session

7 p.m.

Maurice’s Cafe

6038 Telegraph

Oakland

Poetry with jazz featuring Jimmy Sands.

Call 653-6775

Friday, Feb. 9

Strong Women - Writers &

Heroes of Literature

1 - 3 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.

Call 549-2970

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling

Classes for Seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Oakland

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org

Berkeley PC Users Group

7 p.m.

Vista College

2020 Milvia St., Room 303

E-Mail: meldancing@aol.com

Saturday, Feb. 10

Spirits in the Time of AIDS Open Mic.

1 p.m.

Pro Arts Gallery

461 Ninth St.

Oakland

As part of “Consecrations,” the public is invited to see special performances, spoken word, commentary and more.

Marcia Emery, Ph.D., will discuss how to attune your intuitive dream antenna, intuitively unravel the symbolic message of a dream symbol and apply an intuitive dream interpretation method to the entire dream.

$85

Call 526-5510

Sunday, Feb. 11

Ruth Acty Oral History Reception

3 - 5 p.m.

Berkeley Historical Society

Veterans Memorial Building

1931 Center St.

In 1943 Miss Ruth Acty became the first African American teacher to be hired by the Berkeley Unified School District. She taught thousands of students until her retirement in 1985. Oral History Coordinator Therese Pipe interviewed Acty in 1993-94 for the Berkeley Historical Society. Free

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.

$10 per meeting

Call 849-0217

“From Swastika to Jim Crow”

2 - 4:30 p.m.

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center

1414 Walnut St.

Due to the depression and anti-Semitism in the ‘30s, many Jewish “refugee scholars” found they had difficulty finding jobs and were embraced by black universities. Both students and teachers, in the pre-Civil Rights era, found they shared a common experience of living under oppression and a passion for education. Guest speaker Jim McWilliams.

$2 suggested donation

Call 848-0237 x127

Tuesday, Feb. 13

“Great Decisions” - U.S. Trade Policy

10 a.m. - Noon

Berkeley City Club

2315 Durant Ave.

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.

$5 single session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925

Berkeley Camera Club

7:30 p.m.

Northbrae Community Church

941 The Alameda

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips.

Call Wade, 531-8664

Wednesday, Feb. 14

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling

Classes for Seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Oakland

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org

Thursday, Feb. 15

Simplicity Forum

7 - 8:30 p.m.

Berkeley Library

Claremont Branch

2940 Benveue Ave.

Facilitated by Cecile Andrews, author of “Circles of Simplicty,” learn about this movement whose philosophy is “the examined life richly lived.” Work less, consume less, rush less, and build community with friends and family.

Call 549-3509 or visit www.seedsofsimplicity.org

Basics of PCs

9 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Lawrence Hall of Science

UC Berkeley

A class for adults that will cover file management, loading software, software management, downloading pages from the Web, and more.

$30 - $35, registration required

Call 642-5134

Free “Quit Smoking” Class

5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

South Berkeley Senior Center

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees.

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us

Duomo Readings Open Mic.

6:30 - 9 p.m.

Cafe Firenze

2116 Shattuck Ave.

With featured poet Kathleen Lynch and host Mark States.

644-0155

Climbing Mt. Shasta

7 p.m.

Recreational Equipment, Inc.

1338 San Pablo Ave.

Tim Keating of Sierra Wilderness Seminars will give a slide presentation on climbing and skiing this North California peak.

Call 527-7377

Berkeley Metaphysical Toastmasters Club

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.

2515 Hillegass Ave.

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.

Call 869-2547

Friday, Feb. 16

Strong Women - Writers &

Heroes of Literature

1 - 3 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.

Call 549-2970

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling

Classes for Seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Oakland

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org

Saturday, Feb. 17

“Go-Go-Go Greenbelt!”

10 a.m. - 2 p.m.

Rockridge BART

Oakland

A bike tour on this ride into the rolling East Bay hills. A free ride sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance.

Call 415-255-3233 for reservations or visit www.greenbelt.org

Rockridge Writers

3:30 - 5:30 p.m.

Spasso Coffeehouse

6021 College Ave.

Poets and writers meet to critique each other’s work. “Members’ work tends to be dark, humorous, surreal, or strange.”

e-mail: berkeleysappho@yahoo.com

Valentine’s Dinner Dance Benefit Gala

4:30 p.m. - 10 p.m.

Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists hall

1924 Cedar (at Bonita)

Dance to the music of Toru Saitu & his band. Benefits BFUU.

$10 donation

Call 849-9508

Sunday, Feb. 18

Waterfalls of Berkeley

10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

North Berkeley BART

Sacramento at Delaware

On this urban waterfall hike, discover three waterfalls along rushing creeks hidden in Berkeley neighborhoods. A free hike sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance.

Call 415-255-3233 for reservations or visit www.greenbelt.org

Kaleidoscope Performances

2 p.m.

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts

2640 College Ave. (at Derby)

Yassir Chadley, traditional Moroccan musician and Sufi storyteller.

$5 - $10

Call 925-798-1300

Tuesday, Feb. 20

“Great Decisions” - China & Taiwan

10 a.m. - Noon

Berkeley City Club

2315 Durant Ave.

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.

$5 single session

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925

Berkeley Intelligent Conversation

7 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Jewish Community Center

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is different cultural, ethnic and religious values.

Call 527-9772

Berkeley Camera Club

7:30 p.m.

Northbrae Community Church

941 The Alameda

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips.

Call Wade, 531-8664

Wednesday, Feb. 21

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling

Classes for Seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Oakland

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org

Thursday, Feb. 22

Free “Quit Smoking” Class

5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

South Berkeley Senior Center

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees.

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us

Duomo Readings Open Mic.

6:30 - 9 p.m.

Cafe Firenze

2116 Shattuck Ave.

With featured poet Charles Ellick and host Louis Cuneo.

644-0155

Rivers of the World

7 p.m.

Recreational Equipment, Inc.

1338 San Pablo Ave.

Pamela Michael, writer, educator and river conservationist, will highlight her new anthology “The Gift of Rivers: True Stories of Life on the Water,” showing slides of nearly 100 of the world’s great rivers. Free

Call 527-4140

Friday, Feb. 23

Strong Women - Writers &

Heroes of Literature

1 - 3 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.

Call 549-2970

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling

Classes for Seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Oakland

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org

Sunday, Feb. 25

“Imperial San Francisco:

Urban Power, Earthly Ruin”

3 - 5 p.m.

Berkeley History Center

Veterans Memorial Building

1931 Center St.

Gary Brechin speaks on the impact and legacy of the Hearsts and other powerful San Francisco families. Free

Call 848-0181

Reimagining Pacific Cities

6 - 8:30 p.m.

New Pacific Studio

1523 Hearst Ave.

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.

$10 per meeting

Call 849-0217

Authors in the Library: Lois Silverstein

11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center

1414 Walnut St.

Writer and performer, Silverstein, will read selections from “Oh My Darling Daughter,” “Behind the Stove,” and a work-in-progress, “Family Matters.” Discussion and book signing will follow. Free.

Low, whose husband opened Bayside Foods in 1964 at 2020 San Pablo, and later moved the store to 2032 San Pablo, said she’s been running the store by herself, working seven days a week, for over 10 years because her husband left the store to run another business.

“I’m old enough to collect social security,” Low said. “I might as well.”

Low, 63, said when the store opened it was the only grocery store in the area, but that many new grocery stores have since opened in the area.

“It’s getting too crowded in here for me. There’s too much competition.” She said it will be nice to have some time for herself.

Low is said she is saddened she won’t see a lot of her regular customers anymore, many of whom she considers to be like family. Many customers were shocked and upset when she told them about closing, she said.

Looking out on the sidewalk near Bayside, Low spots Annie Carter, a customer since the store opened in 1964.

Carter, 65, grew up in Berkeley and said her kids, the oldest of whom is 50, grew up with Low’s children. The stores closure, she said, saddens her.

“I hate it. I’ve known them so long, they’re family.”

Walking back to the store, Low is approached by Pat Brooks, another customer. “I need meat, Helen! Where am I going to go now?” Brooks, now 47, moved from Texas to Berkeley with her family in the fifth grade and said her whole family has always shopped at Bayside. “I can’t believe it [is closed]. It’s sad.”

Low said that she has seen three or four generations of some families coming to shop at Bayside. Almost everybody who came in knew her by name, but she admitted she had a hard time remembering everybody’s names. But always remembered their faces. She is still receiving phone calls from customers who didn’t realize the store was closed.

Low thought the grocery business was okay as long as she didn’t have any problems, like shop-lifting or fighting. She remembered a female customer trying to shop-lift goods in a bag, which Low attempted to retrieve from the woman. The woman struggled with Low and then bit her in the hand and ran away. Low said the woman eventually came back to the store after about a year, perhaps thinking that Low had forgotten the incident.

“What can you do? You’re open to the public,” she said.

Low said the new owners, a husband and wife, own two meat markets in the Bay Area, and will carry many of the same items she carried. She said that in a lot of ways the store will remain the same when it re-opens next week.

“I told them ‘Don’t be too long because people know Bayside and may go elsewhere,’” she said.

Parents concerned with the high failure rate of Berkeley High School freshman packed the school district board meeting Thursday night to urge passage of a nearly $500,000 plan they feel is crucial to the success of their children.

But when school board president Terry Doran told parents that he wanted to hear from only three representatives instead of the 17 that wished to speak, parents protested.

Vikki Davis, a parent of a Berkeley High freshman, told boardmembers that discussion of their plan should be an action item. And before Davis asked boardmembers to think about what she just said for two full minutes of silence, she said, “It’s a shame we have to do this to get support.”

Davis is a member of Parents of Children of African Descent, a grassroots organization formed a month ago after it was reported that 250 freshman were failing core subjects. To do that, parents want the school district to enact an intervention program comprised of teachers, counselors and members of the community with the sole responsibility of making sure that students get back on track for graduation.

“The bottom line is that there’s a point that everybody in the community knows what’s going on. If a teacher is not doing their job, then the whole community needs to know,” said Michael Miller, another parent. “This is a level of accountability that hasn’t existed before.”

But parents are frustrated that the school board is not taking more immediate action.

“It’s more of the same of them putting us off,” Davis said, adding that the she wanted to provide parents who do not regularly meet with school officials an opportunity to voice their opinion. ”You just can’t pick three of us. The board really needs to hear parents because the board is seeing the same parents.”

Doran, however, said he wanted to give everyone at the meeting a fair chance at speaking.

“I tried as board president to be flexible in running the meeting and it was not part of the normal agenda to discuss PCAD. Limiting the amount of speakers is not unusual” he said, adding that a special board meeting has been called for next Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. “I tried my best to be fair and give opportunities to speak out on all various issues that people wanted to speak about.”

The intervention program is crucial, Doran said, to identify why students were failing classes and to ensure their success. At the meeting next Tuesday, Doran said he wants to identify what the school is presently doing and what more needs to be done.

“We need as many intervention programs as we can get before the semester starts in February. But this is very clearly not a new problem and numerous attempts have been made in past years,” he said.

Shirley Issel, school board vice president, said she doesn’t know wat needs to be done or how soon it can be done but she emphasized the need to identify who the students are and find ways to help them.

“What the parents are asking for is a confident assessment of academic, psychosocial and medical needs of the kids and to create and intervention to address the needs of students who are at risk at a variety of levels,” she said. “That’s what parents are supposed to do.”

Even Darryl Moore, trustee for the Peralta Community College District, emphasized the need to implement the PCAD program for intervention to new interim superintendent Steve Goldstone.

“It should be the first order of business on your desk Feb. 1 at 8 a.m.,” he said.

Although Goldstone did not want to comment on the plan until he looked at in-depth, he did say he is impressed with the parent effort.

“Parent involvement is just critical and it’s exciting to see that as expressed here,” he said.

Although Barry Fike, president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers, has yet to discuss the proposal with district teachers, he said he is also encouraged by the parent effort.

“On the whole it is very thorough and it does address a lot of needs,” Fike said. “And boardmembers are intent on meeting the same goals that members have identified.”

A proposal by the city attorney to amend the definition of what a creek is has caught the attention of creek preservationists who say the amendment is confusing and appeared suddenly without notice.

The amendment to Berkeley’s Creek Ordinance appeared on the City Council’s agenda Tuesday but was pulled by Councilmember Kriss Worthington who said the language of the recommendation wasn’t clear. “It doesn’t have enough wording here to explain what a creek will be under the new definition,” Worthington said. “I just want to make sure all creeks are included.”

The 1989 Creek Ordinance protects waterways in three ways, it prohibits any kind of obstructions, culverting and new construction within 30 feet of creek center.

The written recommendation called for an amendment to the Berkeley Creek Ordinance to “define ‘creek’ as any above-ground creek appearing on the most recent version of the Berkeley creeks map.”

Worthington said redefining exactly what a creek is, should be done very carefully. He said he was particularly concerned with the language of the recommendation, which seemed to change creek definition to only surface creeks.

“The recommendation only says ‘above ground creeks,’” Worthington said Thursday. “A very large percentage of city creeks run underground through culverts and I want to make sure that all natural water courses are protected and that means above, below and partially below ground.”

Wendy Cosin, acting director of Planning and Development, said the wording was taken from the current definition in the Creek Ordinance and is not meant to exclude culvert sections of creeks.

“In fact a new map would show the approximate undergrounding of all watercourses.”

City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque said the amendment was written because a homeowner challenged the Creek Ordinance while applying for a remodel permit for his Bret Harte property.

The homeowner challenged the ordinance because he wanted to build within the 30-foot setback of the branch of Codornices Creek that runs through his property. That section of the creek does not appear on either the Geological Survey Map or the 1975 Berkeley Creeks Map, which are currently used to define creeks in Berkeley.

Albuquerque told the council Tuesday her intention is to strengthen the current ordinance and that the definition should be broadened to include, “all natural occurring waterways.”

She also said there would be a provision in the amendment that would allow any creek or waterway not currently mapped to be immediately updated and protected by the Creek Ordinance.

Urban Creeks Council Vice Chair Carol Schemmerling, who was one of three people to write the Creek Ordinance, said there was some concern among preservationists because no one in the UCC or Friends of Five Creeks was consulted before the amendment was written.

“The amendment looks like it’s OK, but it needs to be looked by people who are familiar with Berkeley’s creeks. ” she said. “We’re just asking that nothing be done until we can look at the changes.”

Cosin said the City Council will consider the amendment to the Creek Ordinance again at its March 13 meeting.

East Bay hospitals are not living up to their obligations to take care of low-income and uninsured patients, speakers at a Wednesday night forum said.

Both nonprofit and for profit hospitals were accused of negligence by participants, including California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, public health officials and a man who has had to wait months for vitally important eye care.

“This is a topic that is of life and death,” U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, told the crowd gathered inside Resurrection Lutheran Church near Lake Merritt. “It’s a shame we have to talk about charity care during a time of economic boom in this country.”

“Charity care” is the free health care that hospitals are supposed to provide the poor and uninsured. Nationally, nonprofit hospitals devote an average of 3 percent of its revenues to charity care, according to several speakers.

In Alameda County, hospitals on average spend less than 1 percent of revenues on charity care, said Sal Rosselli, president of Local 250 of the Service Employees International Union. That union represents workers at Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley and other hospitals.

Rosselli said hospitals should be required to either increase their charity care or should help fund public hospitals and clinics.

“Hospitals – whether for profit or nonprofit – have an obligation to serve the communities they’re located in,” Rosselli said.

Spending on charity care has been declining for the past several years, said Julio Mateo, an attorney and health-care consultant. Yet nonprofit hospital chains such as Sutter – which owns Alta Bates and is the East Bay’s largest hospital group – receive generous tax exemptions in exchange for taking care of the poor.

The low charity care spending shows that hospitals “are not keeping their end of the bargain,” he said.

Mateo cited a 1996 study in the journal Health Affairs that found that a fifth of California non-profit hospitals spend less money on charity care and bad debt – which in general terms is money that hospitals cannot collect from non-indigent patients – than they receive in tax subsidies.

In 1999, Alta Bates and Summit combined, provided more than $48 million in community benefit programs,

serving more than 176,000 people, according to spokesperson Carolyn Kemp.

“At private not-for-profit hospitals, most charity care is delivered through the emergency department. The Alta Bates and Summit Emergency Departments treat all patients, regardless of their ability to pay. In increasing numbers people use the Emergency Department as their source for primary care. Yet, the Emergency Department is the least effective and most expensive way to provide that care,” Kemp said in a prepared statement. “Our goal is to provide programs and services such as the Ethnic Health Institute, Health Ministry/ Parish Nurse Program, Asthma Management Resource Center and Diabetes Center to help people better manage their health and receive preventive and primary care in the appropriate setting.”

Kemp added that the Hospital supports Assemblywoman Dion Aroner, D-Berkeley, and other state legislators in addressing the increasing need to provide primary and preventive care.

Lee said she supports either federal legislation or stiffer federal rules to require a certain level of charity care.

San Francisco hospitals are no more generous than East Bay ones, said Dr. Mitchell Katz, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. There, too, hospitals on average spend less than 1 percent of their revenues on charity care. The only exception is St. Luke’s Hospital, which, as an independent institution, has stronger links to the community, he said; St. Luke’s spends about 3 percent of its revenue on charity care. But, Katz noted, Sutter is trying to purchase St. Luke’s, and that makes city officials worry that the amount of money spent on charity care there will decline.

San Francisco General Hospital is an option for the poor, but it is overcrowded, Katz said. So is Highland General Hospital in Oakland, said Roger Peeks, Highland’s interim chief executive officer. People sometimes spend days in the emergency room waiting for care at Highland and wait months to receive an appointment at a clinic, he said.

Lamont Stewart, 50, a homeless man from Berkeley, said he suffers from glaucoma and burst blood vessels behind his eyes. Stewart said first tried to make an appointment at Highland in October but only recently was given a slot, for Feb. 6.

"My vision and my life are almost on hold," he said.

Hospitals would like to spend more money on charity care, said Rebecca Rozen, regional vice president for the Hospital Council, which represents hospitals in northern and central California. But it is difficult to do so because hospitals increasingly face financial problems as a result of state and federal cutbacks on reimbursement for patient care, she said. Almost two-thirds of hospitals are not profitable, Rozen said.

In addition, she said, hospitals provide other types of “community benefit,” including health education, training of nurses and community grants.

Lockyer said hospital mergers and consolidations have made the problem worse. According to experts, between 50 and 125 of California’s approximately 450 hospitals may close during the next five years, Lockyer said.

Wednesday’s hearing was set up by Aroner, but she was not able to attend her own event. She was stranded in Sacramento because of legislative debate over how to deal with the electricity crisis. Lee acted as the moderator in her stead.

A Berkeley teenager pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges of oral copulation with a 12-year-old girl and will testify against fellow classmates facing similar charges.

The 13-year-old boy is scheduled to be sentenced next month. He and eight others are accused of sexually assaulting their classmate at Willard Middle School.

The case shook the Berkeley community in late October after the assault because the same girl and her 12-year-old friend were allegedly attacked five days later after the first attack at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School.

Berkeley Unified School District officials knew of the second attack but did not immediately alert parents who were trying to understand the situation’s impact on their own children.

After the second attack was reported, district officials handed out fliers to students explaining why the media was at the school.

At the time, police advised the school district not to allow the girl back in school for fear of her own safety.

Some people criticized the school district for not protecting the girl who was allegedly attacked twice in 14 days at two different schools.

District Superintendent Jack McLaughlin said student safety is a top priority and that school employees were being questioned about the two incidents to see if the school system can do anything to better protect all students.

Parents of some of the boys accused in the first attack are angry and say the sexual relations were consensual.

SAN FRANCISCO — The icy waters of San Francisco Bay complete a stunning vista that includes wild islands, a famous bridge and a sparkling skyline.

Exactly 30 years ago, though, those waters were fouled when two oil tankers, shrouded in fog, collided at night and spilled more than 800,000 gallons of thick goo.

It was an environmental disaster that became one of the driving forces for navigation safety and regulations that have made tankers safer and led to a reduction in oil spills along the nation’s waterways.

But oil spills remain a threat, especially to the health of the bay.

“These regulations that took place in 1972 and the strengthening of those in 1990 has definitely reduced the danger of oil spills,” said David Schmidt, a writer and environmental historian with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“But in San Francisco Bay, where you have a lot of ships going through a very narrow corridor, sometimes in complete darkness and heavy fog, an accident could happen at any time. We’re not in the clear.”

Following the Jan. 19, 1971, collision of the two Standard Oil tankers, the Oregon Standard and the Arizona Standard, the U.S. Coast Guard implemented the vessel traffic system, a way of monitoring where ships are and where they are planning to go.

The system, which is used in a number of nations, uses radar, cameras and civilian and military controllers to get the information to the vessels.

The vessel traffic system was first put into place in the United States in 1973 as a result of the San Francisco crash. It is now used all along the nation’s coastlines.

Certain ships, including oil tankers, are required by federal law to participate in the system and to be tuned into the same frequency so they can give and receive information from the area.

Transmitting information was a problem in the 1971 crash, said Lt. Dawn Black, a Coast Guard operations officer. At the time, a voluntary, experimental vessel traffic system, called the Harbor Advisory Radar Project, was being tried out in the San Francisco Bay.

“They collided, and they were actually being watched by the HARP,” she said. “Because there was no backing by law, they didn’t have to participate; they didn’t even have to be on the same channel. So we actually, literally watched the two come together – there was nothing we could do.

“Part of the problem was nobody could get in touch with the vessels,” Black added. “They literally did not see each other coming.”

The vessel traffic system was financed through the Ports & Waterways Safety Act of 1972. An oil spill regulation, the Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasures regulation, was included in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972, which later became the Clean Water Act.

The SPCC control allowed the regulation of the discharge of oil from vessels and onshore and offshore facilities, and the establishment and enforcement of rules for procedures and equipment to prevent or contain spills.

The 1971 collision resulted in about 840,000 gallons of partially refined oil covering the water. The heavy oil prevented waves from crashing on the shore, said Peter Warshall, a biologist who helped clean up the spill.

“It floated on top of the surface of the water, kind of like heavy molasses, then it solidified in the water and was globby, like asphalt,” he said. “It looked like a parking lot.”

People rigged booms to keep the oil out of a lagoon wildlife sanctuary, and at a makeshift rescue center volunteers tried to figure out how to save birds coated with oil.

“In 1971, there were no real methods for cleaning up oil,” Warshall said. “People started literally experimenting on what might be done.

“During that process we learned how to finally take care of birds,” he added. “We found out you had to cover the bird in cornmeal and wash the cornmeal out with mineral oil. The problem was the birds then froze to death. The hard part to learn was you had to hold a bird inside a tub of water, and then it would start to preen itself again and spread its own oil over its body.”

About 7,000 birds were harmed by the spill. Volunteers tried to save about 4,300, and of those, more than 3,400 died.

Still, Warshall said, that’s better than the birds affected by the 1969 spill in the Santa Barbara Channel, when birds were just left to die. During that spill, one of the worst off the California coast, more than 3 million gallons of crude oil flowed out of cracks in the channel floor caused by oil drilling.

Although tankers are now much safer than in 1971, disasters still threaten. The Neptune Dorado, a Singapore-registered tanker that was to unload 580,000 barrels of Australian crude oil at the Tosco Refinery in Rodeo, a city northeast of San Francisco, was stopped in September after oil was found leaking into the ship’s ballast tanks.

The leaks prompted fears of an explosion, and the captain was arrested and charged with ordering the crew to falsify ship logs.

Also, rocks below the surface of the water pose a danger to vessels traveling through the bay, and tankers can be seen zigzagging to avoid them.

The London-based International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation says the number of major spills worldwide has decreased significantly in the last three decades. There were 24 in 1970 and the high was in 1979, when there were 34. In 1999, there were five, according to the ITOPF.

The 1971 spill was not the biggest in San Francisco Bay history. That happened in 1937, when an oil tanker hit a passenger steamer and spilled 2.73 million gallons a mile west of the Golden Gate Bridge. An attempt was made to pump out some of the oil still in the tanker, but a storm about two weeks later sent the whole thing into the ocean.

About 22,000 birds are believed to have died in that spill, and no effort was made to rescue them. In fact, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals patrolled the oily beaches for birds and killed them to prevent them from dying slow deaths.

One of the worst tanker spills in the United States was the Exxon Valdez spill, which dumped more than 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989.

SACRAMENTO — A state tax board member filed suit Thursday to reduce an arbitration panel’s decision to give $88.5 million to five law firms that fought the state over smog impact fees.

Dean Andal of the Board of Equalization filed the complaint in Sacramento Superior Court one day after Attorney General Bill Lockyer also sued on behalf of Gov. Gray Davis to reduce the lawyers’ payment.

Andal’s lawsuit argues the arbitration was unconstitutional because it is the Legislature’s duty to appropriate tax dollars.

Thousands of motorists who registered out-of-state vehicles in California in the 1990s had to pay the fees, but they were found unconstitutional in October 1999. The Legislature and Gov. Gray Davis agreed last year to set aside $665 million to refund the fees, including interest.

The amount paid to the lawyers was decided in binding arbitration, but Davis and state Controller Kathleen Connell say that award – which amounts to about $8,800 per hour – is excessive.

In its filing Wednesday in Sacramento Superior Court, the state and its Department of Motor Vehicles argue that the arbitration panel exceeded the law by granting an award that “plaintiffs’ counsel could not have obtained had they prevailed through all appeals” and that the lawyers couldn’t have obtained through the Legislature.

The University of California, which had seemed in danger of being ousted from its historic role as manager of the nation’s nuclear labs, signed an agreement Thursday extending its contract to 2005.

The renegotiated contract leaves UC in control of implementing security at the facilities but gives the federal government significant new powers in deciding who works there.

The agreement extends UC’s current contract by three years and was signed by UC regents and the Energy Department in the waning hours of the Democratic administration. It follows months of turmoil at the two facilities, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory near San Francisco.

UC had come under withering criticism from some in Congress after a string of scandals that included the alleged, but never proved, leak of secrets to China, problems with Livermore’s superlaser project and the disappearance of hard drives containing classified information.

At one point, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced he was making major changes in security procedures and said he had not ruled out putting the management contract out to competitive bid.

That is an option UC, which has managed Los Alamos and Livermore for the federal government since they were created a half-century ago, made clear it wouldn’t pursue.

However, the Energy Department announced last October it was extending UC’s contracts providing there were changes.

UC regents unanimously approved those changes Thursday less than 48 hours before Richardson’s term expired.

The timing was close, but UC President Richard C. Atkinson said he believes there is bipartisan support for UC’s role.

“I believe it’s always been in the nation’s best interests to have these labs managed by the University of California. We truly do it as a service to the country,” Atkinson said.

Key changes in the modified contracts are provisions allowing the government to dock UC’s performance fee for safety and security violations and allowing the Energy Secretary to order the removal – although not the firing – of any lab employee. UC negotiators won a provision giving them 60 days to review a removal request, but the Energy Secretary has final say.

On the issue of security, UC must bring in experts as consultants but remains in control.

The contracts retains much of the old language, including a commitment to preserving an academic atmosphere.

However, the government now has the power to reduce UC’s performance fee for environmental, safety or security problems or for failure to meet management objectives.

The maximum performance fee remains $14.4 million for both labs through 2002 and increases to $15.8 million after that.

The maximum penalty would be the entire fee, which is a fraction of the labs’ overall budget of $2.6 billion but would be a significant embarrassment for UC.

UC also gets a base management fee, which brings the fee total to about $25 million a year. UC manages the labs on a nonprofit basis and any surplus goes back into the budget.

The modified contracts do not include the third lab UC manages for DOE, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which does not conduct classified research and remains on its five-year contract signed in 1997.

Regents approved the modified contracts with almost no discussion, a stark contrast to the noisy public debate that has swirled about the labs.

Among the problems was the two-month disappearance of the Los Alamos hard drives, still a mystery, and the repercussions that followed Richardson’s discovery that Livermore’s $1 billion laser project, which he had been assured was on track, was hundreds of millions over budget and faced substantial delays.

Lab troubles began in early 1999 when Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee was fired amid an espionage investigation.

Lee was charged with mishandling classified information and jailed, but was freed last September after the government dropped all but one of 59 charges. Lee was never charged with espionage and denied passing secrets to anyone.

In his statement Thursday, Richardson called the modified contracts a “tremendous achievement.”

“I think we’ve turned a corner in our management challenges, and I’m very comfortable turning this over to a new administration,” he said.

PASADENA — The state Department of Education has determined that adults apparently altered students’ standardized test results in two third-grade classes at an elementary school here to improve the scores.

An analysis of tests administered at Willard Elementary School last spring showed an unusually high number of answers that had been erased and changed from wrong to right, school officials said Wednesday.

Interim Superintendent Edgar Seal said the Pasadena Unified School District has conducted its own review and will not contest the findings.

“Our teachers didn’t admit it, but the irregularities showed it was something we can’t contest,” Seal said. In both classes, about 90 percent of the erased answers were changed from wrong to right, officials said.

The state uses the Stanford 9, a multiple-choice test, to calculate the Academic Performance Index scores that evaluate schools from year to year. Schools that post significant gains are eligible for financial rewards, including bonuses to teachers.

Willard had been eligible for the highest-level reward, which would have given each school employee between $5,000 and $25,000. The findings will mean that Willard is not eligible for those incentives, Seal said.

The school, which has 780 students, will not get the incentives next year either, because it will have no base from which to compare any improvement.

“It does hurt our pride,” said Willard Principal Kathy Onoye, who investigated the allegations. “We believe we’re a very good school. This is a real hard blow.”

The California Department of Education has invalidated scores at 26 schools and is still investigating about 30 others for testing irregularities, said Pat McCabe, an administrator in the office of policy and evaluation. There are more than 7,000 schools statewide.

McCabe said that in each case, a district has been determined to have had “adult testing irregularities,” either erased and corrected answers or inappropriate test preparations by teachers.

Seal said both teachers who administered the exams denied altering the results.

He said the district is exploring possible disciplinary action against the teachers, whose names were not release. One teacher continues to teach at Willard; the other left the district late last year.

School officials said they do not believe that the principal or her administrators played any part in the irregularities, which were discovered after the publisher of the Stanford 9 test, Harcourt Brace and Co., spotted them last fall and notified the state.

SACRAMENTO — The lights went out in nearly 2 million California homes and businesses Thursday in a second straight day of blackouts as state lawmakers struggled to find a way out of the deepening crisis.

The blackouts began about 10 a.m. and stretched from the Bakersfield area of central California to Oregon, 500 miles away. The rolling outages lasted about two hours.

Power managers said they expected to have enough power to avoid more blackouts at night, though more problems were possible Friday.

Meanwhile, lawmakers considered a stopgap $400 million rescue plan in which the state would buy power on the open market and provide it to strapped utilities at little cost. The Senate Energy Committee approved it 10-7; the full Senate was expected to consider it Thursday evening.

Gov. Gray Davis said he hoped to have the proposal, which would assure power over the next few days, on his desk by late evening.

“It would be enormously helpful and it would save the state money, if I could sign a bill by late tonight,” Davis said.

Hospitals and airports were exempt from the outages. And home-care patients who rely on electrically powered medical equipment because of lung disease or other ailments usually have batteries or backup generators.

Utilities refused to disclose which areas were blacked out, but the effects were obvious: Traffic lights went out for a second day across the San Francisco Bay area, causing fender-benders in Palo Alto.

Computer screens went dark, heaters and bank machines were silent and lights went out in classrooms.

The power outage in Sun City Lincoln Hills, a retirement community near Sacramento, prompted Jim Datzman, 62, and his wife, Sandy, 59, to take their two grandsons to a community playground.

The 2-year-old twins, Corbin and Quinn, had been watching Barney on television when the power went out.

“We saw a lot of our neighbors lifting our garages up manually, which of course isn’t too good for seniors,” Datzman said.

With no end to the crisis in sight, Californians began stocking up on flashlights, candles and firewood. Stores were swamped with calls from businesses looking for generators.

The Independent System Operator, keeper of the state power grid, said the latest blackouts were caused by a loss of thousands of megawatts from the Northwest, where hydroelectric dams are low on water. One megawatt is enough to power 1,000 homes.

The first mandatory blackouts came Wednesday, also in northern and central California. Northern California has faced the outages first because of a transmission-line bottleneck that makes it harder for the northern part of the state to bring in power. Southern California has been spared from rolling blackouts so far.

On Wednesday, Davis declared a state of emergency and ordered the state Water Resources Department to temporarily buy up to $1 billion in power from wholesalers and provide it to the state’s two largest utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Edison. Both are short on power and in deep financial trouble.

Davis made no mention of making the utilities pay for the power. That means the cost could fall on the taxpayers.

In the Legislature, meanwhile, lawmakers tried to work out longer-term solutions under which the state would buy even larger amounts of power for up to five years.

Many lawmakers were concerned about whether the state would get its money back from the utilities.

“We are in a terrible situation,” said Sen. Debra Bowen, who heads the Senate energy committee.

The emergency action didn’t help the utilities’ standing in the financial community, where the companies have become pariahs.

The state’s move “stops the bleeding, but these companies have lost so much blood that it’s going to take a lot to pump them back up again,” said Richard Cortright, an analyst for Standard & Poor’s, which has downgraded the utilities’ credit ratings to junk status.

The governor signed legislation Thursday afternoon overhauling the ISO board to remove those with a direct stake in buying and selling power. Instead, the governor will appoint a five-member board.

Davis also signed a second piece of legislation that would roll back California’s deregulation by dropping a requirement that utilities sell their power plants.

The crisis is blamed in part on the Northwest’s limited supplies of hydroelectric power and California’s deregulation of its electricity industry.

Under the plan, utilities were forced to sell their power plants and buy electricity on the open market, an approach that was supposed to lead to lower rates. But wholesale prices for electricity have soared and rate caps imposed under deregulation have prevented utilities from passing on those costs to customers.

PG&E and SoCal Edison estimate they have lost more than $11 billion. They have both defaulted on millions in dollars in bills and lender payments and have warned that they are sliding toward bankruptcy.

SoCal Edison was forced to buy power outside the state Power Exchange on Thursday after missing a deadline for paying $215 million to cover the utility’s unpaid bills.

That forced the exchange to seize Edison’s forward contracts as collateral to cover the debt. The utility must post collateral before it can return to the market, exchange spokesman Jesus Arredondo said.

Edison spokesman Kevin Kelley declined to comment on the move: “Things are too much in flux,” he said.

Arredondo would not say where SoCal Edison bought its power Thursday. When asked what the utility could do were it unable to post collateral, Arredondo said, “Go shopping for energy somewhere else.”

The utility was expected to be able to obtain power through the state, although it has not yet done so, said Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio.

PG&E has also warned that it may have to cut off the supply of natural gas to customers that include power plants. Suppliers are threatening to stop dealing with the cash-starved utility for fear they won’t be paid.

The stock market appeared a little more hopeful about the utilities’ outlook as the stocks of their corporate parents edged up Thursday. PG&E Corp.’s shares gained 12 1/2 cents to close at $9.75 and Edison International’s shares rose 12 1/2 cents to close at $9.

SANTA CLARA — California’s energy crisis has not yet caused a mass departure of businesses but a group of Silicon Valley leaders warned state lawmakers Thursday that having reliable power is crucial to their future plans.

“We intend to grow in California, and power is important to our growth,” said Ellen Hancock, chief executive officer of Exodus Communications, Inc. “There are two things our customers need: They need bandwidth. They need power.”

Exodus Communications, a Santa Clara-based company that provides server-storage services for Internet companies, including eBay and Yahoo, hosted a private meeting Thursday between some 80 members of the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group and state legislators and their aides.

The meeting, planned over a month ago, coincidentally fell on the second consecutive day of rolling blackouts, which affected half a million Northern Californians on Wednesday and millions more Thursday. Many lawmakers planned to attend the meeting, but were called into an emergency session on power in Sacramento. Five participated in the meeting by phone.

The region’s tech leaders have tried to hammer in the point for some time – that the New Economy could be short-circuited unless steps are taken to upgrade California’s power grid.

At a regional energy summit last June – after a record heat wave drained the state’s power supply and forced scattered outages in Northern California – Silicon Valley leaders warned the U.S. Department of Energy that extended blackouts could represent the potential loss of billions of dollars to high-tech firms that rely on uninterrupted power sources.

The cost of Wednesday’s rolling blackouts to Silicon Valley businesses was still being tallied but it’s already in the “tens of millions of dollars,” said Carl Guardino, president of the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group, which represents 200 companies.

And, Guardino said, consider this: during the power outages on June 14, members of the trade group collectively lost about $100 million in a single day.

While the high-tech industry consumes massive amounts of the region’s power, it does want to be part of the solution as well, Guardino told reporters at a press conference following the meeting.

The steps the region’s high-tech employers agreed to take included:

—reducing their power consumption by 10 percent over the next two years, even as they grow;

—increasing participation in a campaign to create more energy reserves;

—creating more power generation plants, including at company sites; and

—lobbying and working with state leaders on effective deregulation of the power industry.

Though leaving California was not raised during Thursday’s meeting, Guardino said that several companies’ chief executives had told him earlier they were considering exit strategies if California did not get its power act together.

“It’s not a threat. It’s a reality of business,” Guardino said.

For its part, Exodus Communications is moving ahead with plans to build an onsite power co-generation plant, Hancock said. She would not disclose a specific location but said the company hopes to win the support of the local government for such a project.

Exodus has more than 30 Internet data centers in the United States — five of them in Silicon Valley — where client companies store their servers inside a secure vault. The centers are equipped with backup generators in case of emergencies, but a reliable source of power is key to the company’s growth, Hancock said.

“What’s important to us is the generation of power to meet the growing demand of the growing economy,” Hancock said. “The message we want to give is that conservation is not enough.”

The state’s population has grown by more than 6 million people over the past decade, yet there has been little increase in power sources, Guardino said. “That means 6 million more refrigerators, washer and dryers, cell phones, computers and Palm Pilots,” he said.

Guardino said the trade group is urging state and local leaders to work together on ways to increase power generation and transmission across California.

High-tech employers also said they would like to see more government incentive programs, including tax credits, that would reward energy-conserving businesses.

A spokesman for State Sen. John Vasconcellos, a member of the Senate Energy Committee who joined Thursday’s meeting by phone, called the session with Silicon Valley leaders “productive” and “candid.”

The group of lawmakers, said Rand Martin, Vasconcellos’ chief of staff, learned more about the difficulties companies face in building their own generation plants. They learned that two state laws seem to contribute to the problem: an arbitrary limit of a so-called mini-turbine plant to 50 megawatts and the lack of a statewide standard for transmission between those power distribution points.

The legislators did not immediately agree to any action, but Martin said they would explore issues “that we think we can do some good on.”

At the same time, the lawmakers urged the business leaders to lobby federal regulators to do their part in getting energy suppliers outside California “to stop their greedy, gouging ways,” Martin said. “We’re at their mercy, and as long as the generators can charge (California utilities) whatever they want, we’re at a loss to fix the system.”

Indian cultural and religious sites on the edge of Arizona would be irreparably harmed by putting an open-pit gold mine near them, said Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in announcing he was killing the project.

Babbitt’s action Wednesday blocked Glamis Gold Ltd. of Reno, Nev., from opening the mine on 1,571 acres of Bureau of Land Management property about 45 miles northwest of El Centro, Calif. Angry company officials said they would try to reverse the decision in court.

The National Mining Association called the decision “outrageous” and said it would deny Imperial County 120 well-paying jobs and millions of dollars in economic benefit.

“We are very disappointed that the outgoing administration has abandoned the domestic mining industry,” said Kevin McArthur, Glamis’ president.

The Quechan Tribe, whose reservation sits near the proposed mine, was jubilant.

“No amount of gold – whatever they pay, whatever it costs – will take the place of history,” said a tearful Quechan President Mike Jackson. “History was saved.”

The tribe said the project would harm archaeological remains such as rock carvings, ceremonial circles and trails across the volcanic desert terrain. The so-called spirit trails, which connect sacred sites, have been used for thousands of years.

The company, which had spent $1 million trying to mitigate the Indians’ concerns, argued that the decision was based on what it said was an erroneous ruling earlier this month by Interior Solicitor John Leshy.

He determined that under a 1976 mining law Babbitt has veto power over projects at odds with Indian historical or ceremonial lands.

Babbitt said his decision represented the first mine rejection under that law, which allows denial of mining permits for “undue degradation” to the environment.

“I think this is in fact a momentous occasion,” Babbitt said.

“No administration has ever taken these recommendations seriously, but I do.”

He said his decision was based on the proposal to remove 450 million tons of rock and ore from a 21/2-square-mile area, then rinse the ore with cyanide to obtain about 50 file boxes worth of gold.

He held up a box to illustrate what he described as just a small amount of gold that would be recovered.

Glamis, which has spent more than $14 million developing the project, estimated the mine would yield 1.1 million ounces of gold worth about $300 million.

On the Net:

Bureau of Land Management report: http://www.ca.blm.gov/elcentro/imperial—project.html

Sanding is one of the most common construction and repair tasks you have to do around your home. It is the final step that determines the final appearance of your work. Done right, it makes your paint job perfect. Done badly, it shows through the most skillfully applied finish. Sanding is also one of the easiest jobs to do right, if you select the correct abrasives. Use them properly and it’s almost impossible to do a bad job. However, the wrong abrasives can make it almost impossible to get good results no matter how hard you work with them.

Sandpaper can be identified by three things: the type of abrasive particles on its surface, the grit (or coarseness) of each particle, and the actual amount of abrasives on each sheet.

The two most common types of sandpaper are coated with abrasives made from flint and garnet. Flint is cheaper and this makes it a logical choice when working on surfaces like paint and soft, gummy woods that clog the paper quickly. Garnet grits form a tougher, longer-lasting surface and are a better choice when working on hardwoods like walnut and oak.

Silicone carbide is the hardest abrasive grit generally available for consumer use. These abrasive sheets are ideal for sanding nonferrous metals, composition boards and plastics. When applied to waterproof papers or cloth backing materials, silicone carbide can also be used for wet sanding with water or mineral oil for rubbing down varnish, polyurethane and lacquer finishes.

The closest thing to an all-purpose paper is aluminum oxide paper. It can be used on wood, metal, plastics and fiberglass.

The grit size of the abrasive on a sheet of sandpaper is identified by a number on the backing material. The higher the number, the finer the grit. Extremely coarse papers with relatively open coats of abrasives – each granules spaced out from the others – remove heavy layers of paint, enamel or varnish from relatively rough surfaces. They’re fine for preparing the surface of a house for painting, but would be wrong for taking even a heavy paint buildup from fine interior paneling or furniture.

Medium grits remove light stock from wood and prepare walls for painting inside the house as well as smoothing rougher sanding for finer finishing. Fine and very fine grits carry this process the rest of the way for a perfect finish, removing sanding scratches to make a surface ready for primer or sealer.

With most sandpapers you have a choice of open or closed coatings. A closed coat covers the entire sheet with abrasive particles while a more open coat may give no more than 50 percent or 70 percent coverage. Spacing the grits far apart makes the sandpaper cut more slowly because there are fewer grits to do the job, but the paper doesn’t load up with paint or gummy wood.

As for sanding techniques, to finish wood smoothly, sand with the grain. Plastics have no grain, but some of them melt when heated by friction so the surface smears rather than smoothes. Fiberglass sands well, but the dust contains tiny glass fibers, so you should wear a dust mask for protection.

A tropical plant that bears a most delectable fruit has been parading as a mere houseplant. Its a common houseplant, and you may even be growing it. Perhaps you grow it under the unassuming name of split-leaf philodendron, or the more descriptive name of Swiss-cheese plant. The plant is really a philodendron look-alike with the botanical name Monstera deliciosa.

Monster can have rather monstrous leaves, and that may be how it got that part of its name. Along the edges of Mexicos steamy, tropical jungles, wild monsteras grow leaves that are a foot or more across. In that bright, dappled light, the leaves are pocked with large holes much like Swiss cheese, and also are cut deeply in along their edges. Indoor growing conditions are often not good enough for the leaves to develop large size or holes.

The name monstera could have come about because of the size of the plant itself. In a tropical forest, this vine will grasp a tree trunk with its aerial roots, then clamber 30 feet or more skyward.

Still, monstera is one of the easiest houseplants to grow – another similarity, besides leaf shape and vining habit, it shares with philodendrons. The better the growing conditions, the better the plant looks.

Except in summer, monsteras love high humidity and as much light as possible. Being truly tropical, the plants prefer year-round heat; not mere warmth, but heat.

With good growing conditions, a monstera vine needs support. One way to provide support is to roll up a length of chicken wire, pack it full of coarse sphagnum moss, then stake that mossy column next to the plant. This sphagnum moss cylinder increases the humidity near the plant and provide moist support to which the aerial roots can cling. The plant is almost as happy climbing any rough piece of wood.

What about that “deliciosa” fruit? The ripe fruits, which follow the spearlike flowers, look like a cross between an ear of corn and a pine cone. The fruit must be dead ripe before it can be eaten, at which point the flavor is a tasty blend of pineapple and banana. Although a monstera plant is very easy to grow, its hard to bring it to bear fruit without a tropical climate or a perpetually warm greenhouse.

Q: My home has a heating system with a metal chimney that runs up through the attic and terminates above the roof. Since the temperature of the chimney in the attic is not high enough to ignite wood, why is it necessary to have a 2-inch clearance between the chimney and the wood framing in the attic?

A: The ignition temperature of wood is defined as the temperature at which it begins to burn. Wood and other combustibles undergo a physical change when continually exposed to elevated temperatures. This reduces their ignition temperatures.

Wood normally begins to burn at about 400 F to 600 F. However, when it’s continually exposed to temperatures between 150 F and 250 F, its ignition temperature can become as low as 200 F.

The lowering of the ignition temperature of wood and other combustible materials can take years to occur. When it does, should the wood’s temperature coincide with its lowered ignition temperature, it will ignite and burn spontaneously. This is the basis for the clearance requirements in building and fire codes.

Q: A musty odor that gives us headaches is coming from under our sink. A plumber checked the drains and vents. The city has checked the sewers and there are no leaks under the house. Nor are there any dead animals under it. This odor suddenly appeared two months ago in my 51/2-year-old house. It’s worse when it rains. Any suggestions?

A: As you’ve had your sewage system checked thoroughly, this is only one option. After turning off the water, remove the base cabinet under the sink.

Then remove the drywall behind the sink, as there are cases where rodents have entered the walls from either attics or basements and, when they cannot find their way out, they die and decompose. This might tie in with the two months you mention.

You might also want to get the opinion of a reliable exterminator before you tear your kitchen apart.

Q: I have just noticed this since I had my rooms remodeled, and I had insulation put on first. Now I find mold spots forming inside glass picture frames on the shelves. My basement is a dirt floor under the living room. Could the dirt floor be causing this problem?

Answer: Yes. Even when the dirt feels dry to the touch, it wicks up subsurface water, and this is released into the area under the living room and eventually into the living room itself.

Before you remodeled your rooms, there apparently were enough open joints in the walls through which the moisture could escape to the outside. After you remodeled, those joints were sealed, causing the moisture to remain in the rooms. To control the moisture buildup, you should cover the dirt floor in the basement with a vapor barrier, such as 4- or 6-mil-thick polyethylene plastic sheets. Overlap the sheets and tape the joints shut.

To submit a question, write to Popular Mechanics, Reader Service Bureau, 224 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019. The most interesting questions will be answered in a future column.

SAN JOSE — Fourth-quarter profits at eBay Inc. beat Wall Street expectations Thursday, as the mammoth Internet auction site said it had added a record 3.5 million users in the last three months of 2000.

Analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial were expecting profits of 7 cents a share this quarter.

The news sent shares of San Jose-based eBay soaring as high as $52.06 in after-hours trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. “We are extremely pleased with the strength of our business and with the tremendous momentum we have going into the new year,” said Meg Whitman, eBay’s president and CEO.

The report came off as exceptionally glowing, considering the recent parade of unmet goals and grim outlooks from e-commerce sites and high-tech companies.

“There’s been a lot of questions about almost every other model on the Internet beside eBay, and this quarter they proved they’re immune from all the various issues surrounding the Internet,” said Adria Markus, Internet analyst at Epoch Partners.

EBay said its international growth, new partnerships and the increase in the types of items available on the site has swelled its ranks to 22.5 million registered users, more than twice the 10 million counted at the end of 1999.

In the fourth quarter alone, users traded $1.6 billion worth of goods, and eBay said it saw a big bump in sales of holiday items despite a soft season for traditional retailers.

Analysts said that was likely because of the strength of eBay’s brand and the value proposition it offers.

“You could make the case that even a slowing economic environment would not be a negative environment for these guys,” said Steve Weinstein, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities.

EBay was bullish on its 2001 outlook, saying its recent $120 million purchase of a majority stake in Internet Auction Co. Ltd., a South Korean online bidding site, likely will help push revenue toward $150 million in the current first quarter and $665 million for all of 2001.

EBay said this week it is increasing the fees sellers must pay to auction goods on the site, a move aimed at increasing profits, reducing some clutter and funding future service upgrades.

EBay, which has at times suffered hobbling and costly outages, upgraded its servers last week and will invest significantly in similar improvements over the next year and a half, Chief Operating Officer Brian Swette said.

Markus said she was impressed that eBay’s gross margins were higher than expected, with the number of users growing rapidly but the costs of acquiring new customers staying flat.

“They’re obviously doing something right in terms of managing efficiencies,” she said.

The Cardinal (16-0, 5-0 Pac-10) weren’t really threatened while beating the Golden Bears for a school-record eighth straight time, but the rivalry isn’t nearly as one-sided as it was in recent years.

Cal (11-5, 3-2), which lost for just the second time in 12 games, stayed with the Cardinal until the second half, when Jacobsen’s outside bombs and the inside play of twins Jarron and Jason Collins became too much.

Jason Collins had 15 points for the Cardinal, who put the game away with a 16-2 run that gave them a 26-point lead midway through the second half. Still, Solomon Hughes led a late 14-6 Cal run that forced Stanford coach Mike Montgomery to re-insert his starters in the final minutes.

Brian Wethers had 18 points and Sean Lampley added 14 for the Bears, who looked nothing like the team that lost 101-50 to the Cardinal last season at Maples Pavilion – Stanford’s biggest win in the rivalry’s history.

Stanford moved within two victories of matching the best start in school history and won its third straight since taking over the nation’s top ranking. The Cardinal and No. 9 Georgetown (16-0) are the only remaining undefeated Division I teams.

Stanford’s normally staid home court had plenty of energy for the 233rd meeting between the Bay area rivals. Cal’s band was crammed into the back rows of one corner of the small gym, and Stanford students paraded the Axe – won by the Cardinal in the schools’ annual football matchup – during the first half.

The teams were caught up in the intensity as well. The officials called needless technical fouls on Jarron Collins and Cal’s Dennis Gates after the two collided and exchanged harsh words in the first half, and Ryan Mendez exchanged shoves with Joe Shipp moments later.

The always-entertaining Stanford student body was in top form, ragging Cal with chants of “NIT!” and “Cal needs Marsha!” moments after a woman named Marsha made three straight 3-pointers to win $1,000 in a school promotion.

Both teams play host to non-conference opponents on Saturday. New Mexico visits Stanford, while South Florida goes to Berkeley.

Bill Clinton came from the trailer-park American South, from people that genteel southerners like to call "trash." But however often late-night comics scorned him as "Bubba," William Jefferson Clinton transformed himself into the president of America's middle class – that was his triumph and his limitation.

Other recent American presidents have come from backgrounds as humble as Clinton’s. Think of Lyndon Johnson or Jimmy Carter.

But Clinton's home life was never less than what pop psychologists call “dysfunctional.”

Zama had several husbands who became stepfathers with fists and red eyes.

Who can blame the boy for running so far from such a past? Who can guess what the child knew, very early, about losers in America and about standing on the outside, nose pressed against the glass?

The boy we see, young Billy Clinton of the photographs, already was fixed on his hero, the golden John Kennedy.

The price that the man, President Clinton, would pay for running so far and so fast is that he would never achieve a great presidency.

To become a great president, one must touch the lives of all people, most especially the very poor and hopeless.

Clinton lacked the secular populism of Lyndon Johnson. He also lacked areligious language about poverty.

It's hard to imagine him, in retirement, working alongside Jimmy Carter, building houses for the destitute in Tijuana.

Eight years ago, the novelist Toni Morrison called Clinton America’s first African-American president.

Her’s was an interesting conceit. But Clinton, more truly, was our first “middle-class African-American president.”

I do not mean to diminish Clinton by saying this. Truly, Clinton crossed some new racial border.

But one sensed that his ability to trespass the racial border in America allowed Clinton to ignore the border of class in America.

In fact, at the start of Clinton's presidency, there were nearly a million persons in American prisons.

As his presidency ends, that number has grown to more than two million.

Is it necessary to add: Most of those in America's jails are black and lower class?

We of the middle class don't go to jail in America. We get several months of “community service” or we get methadone treatment centers. Or we get good lawyers.

For all of his intimacy with black America and maybe because of that intimacy, Bill Clinton never challenged the black bourgeoisie's support of programs like affirmative action.

In my opinion, what is flawed about affirmative action is that it benefits the non-white middle class, lets

the middle class benefit from being “minorities,” because of a numerical tie to the excluded lower class.

On the other hand, perhaps the best thing Clinton ever gave the poor in America was a lack of sentimentality.

Just as it took the anti-communist Nixon to make a diplomatic breakthrough to China, it took a president with a distinctly unsentimental regard of the working class to reform welfare so radically.

One sensed the cruel depth of Clinton's lack of sentimentality also in his sexual treatment of white southern women with big hair.

He used them, and then he debased them, and then, when he couldn't get rid of them, he paid them off.

He allowed his henchman, James Carville, to wonder aloud about all the things a hundred dollar bill might pick up in a trailer camp.

Clinton’s sexual appetite turned middle-class in the course of his presidency.

He ended up playing Big Daddy in the Oval Office to an over-ripe daughter of Beverly Hills. Then he lied to America; then he apologized to America. Then he bombed a foreign country to help us forget.

And just as Clinton’s black civil rights supporters downplayed the growing numbers of incarcerated Americans during his tenure, middle-class feminist groups wanted to turn to other matters than presidential misbehavior.

Feminist groups were more interested in abortion and glass ceilings.

His best friends were movie stars -- gaudy, vulgar and noisy. And the Lincoln bedroom seemed always occupied by some nouveau riche, someone like himself, who had re-invented himself.

The Republican party, especially its fierce Protestant right flank, never understood the affection Americans of the middle class had for him.

Clinton was a scoundrel, yes, everyone agreed. But just as we do not expect to be judged harshly for our misbehaviors, we would not judge Clinton harshly.

Maybe he should “seek treatment” for his sexual misbehavior?

In the end, he became a globalist who rarely evoked a sense of home.

Who knows where he will live after the White House? What matters to most middle-class Americans is that he made money for us.

He flattered our needs and so we flattered him. We called him a genius.

So self-preoccupied are we as middle-class Americans we assume that what benefits us must benefit the nation. And besides, any discussion of class bothers us.

We prefer to talk about identity politics – about race and sexual identity.

It is hard for us in the middle class in America to care that the population group with the lowest level of participation in the recent presidential election was the poor.

We of the middle class think little about them, as little as Bill Clinton talked about them. Truly, he was our president, the president of the American middle class.

Thursday, Jan. 18

Simplicity Forum

7 - 8:30 p.m.

Berkeley Library

Claremont Branch

2940 Benveue Ave.

Facilitated by Cecile Andrews, author of “Circles of Simplicty,” learn about this movement whose philosophy is “the examined life richly lived.” Work less, consume less, rush less, and build community with fri ends and family.

Glen Kitzenberger discusses what homeowners need to know before building or remodeling.

Skip Wenz discusses the pros and cons of building an addition. Free

Call 525-7610

— compiled by

Chason Wainwright

Free Puppet Shows

1:30 & 2:30 p.m.

Hall of Health

2230 Shattuck Ave.

The Kids on the Block, an award-winning educational puppet troupe, includes puppets with such conditions as cerebral palsy, blindness and Down syndrome.

Bengal Basin Seminar

3 p.m.

Warren Hall, Room 22

UC Berkeley

Part of the Third International India Bangladesh Symposium for reducing the impact of toxic chemicals on the Bengal Basin. With World Poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Call 841-3253

Sunday, Jan. 21

Live Oak Concert

7:30 p.m.

Berkeley Art Center

1275 Walnut St.

The music of J.S. Bach and Antonio Vivaldi played by the trio of Marvin Sanders, flute, Becky Lyman, harpsichord, and Alexander Kort, cello.

$8 - $10

Call 644-6893

Saying No To Power

10:30 a.m.

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center

1414 Walnut St. (at Rose)

Bill Mandel, author and activist talks about his new book.

$4 - $5

848-0237

Single Parents and Step & Blended

Family Interfaith Fellowship

4 - 6 p.m.

Beth El Synagogue

2301 Vine St. (at Spruce)

An interfaith and very open group that welcomes parents and their children of all affiliations and orientations. This meetings discussion topics will be a supportive and advice oriented look at dating.

Monday, Jan. 22

Berkeley Rail Stop Community

Design Workshop

7 - 9 p.m.

West Berkeley Senior Center

1900 Sixth St.

The public is invited to suggest ideas and comment on plans for design-development at the rail stop/transit plaza area of West Berkeley.

Call 644-6580

Urban Homelessness

& Public Policy Solutions

9 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Alumni House

UC Berkeley

This day-long conference will include key scholars, service providers, and policymakers in the homelessness field. Some of the subjects to be covered will be: Homeless population dynamics and policy implications, health issues in homelessness, and legal and political issues in homelessness. Free and open to the public.

For more info, visit: http://urbanpolicy.berkeley.edu/homeless.htm

Building or Remodeling?

7 - 9 p.m.

Building Education Center

812 Page St.

Glen Kitzenberger discusses what you need to know before building or remodeling.

Call 525-7610

Tuesday, Jan. 23

Berkeley Camera Club

7:30 p.m.

Northbrae Community Church

941 The Alameda

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips.

Call Wade, 531-8664

PSR’s Annual Earl Lectures

9 a.m. - 10 p.m.

First Congregational Church of Berkeley

2345 Channing Way

Celebrating their 100th anniversary of lectures, this year will focus on Christian mission in a pluralistic age. This year there are 28 workshops and three panels of national religious leaders and scholars. Free

Call 849-8274

Wednesday, Jan. 24

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling

Classes for Seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Oakland

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org

Thursday, Jan. 25

Spirits in the Time of AIDS

6 - 8 p.m.

Pro Arts Gallery

461 Ninth St.

Oakland

Pro Arts reception for the opening of their new exhibition seeking to expand the understanding of HIV and AIDS and the people who are affected by them.

Call 763-9425

Free “Quit Smoking” Class

5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

South Berkeley Senior Center

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees.

Orquesta D’Soul, a San Francisco based band, is hosting this benefit featuring the musical talents of local bay area women in salsa.

$8 in advance, $10 at the door

Call 849-2568 or visit www.lapena.org

Conversations in Commedia

7:30 p.m.

La Pena Cultural Center

3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince)

Mime Troupe vet and St. Stupid’s Day creator, Ed Holmes, and 84-year-old Bari Rolfe, a mime for over 30 years, give dialogues on satire.

$6 - $8

Call 849-2568

West Berkeley Project Area Commission

7 p.m.

West Berkeley Senior Center

1900 Sixth St.

Discussions will include review of the initial environmental study and recommendations on a request to establish a public market. Also, consideration of a petition requesting that diagonal parking and parking meters not be installed on Fifth St.

Take the Terror Out of Talking

12:10 - 1:10 p.m.

Department of Health Services

2151 Berkeley Way

State Health Toastmasters Club is hosting an open house to celebrate Toastmasters International Week and to kick-off the start of “Speechcraft,” a six-session workshop to help participants overcome nervousness and learn basic public speaking skills.

Call 649-7750

Friday, Jan. 26

Strong Women - Writers &

Heroes of Literature

1 - 3 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.

Call 549-2970

“The Aftermath of the National Election”

11:45 a.m. luncheon

12:30 p.m. speaker

Berkeley City Club

2315 Durant Ave.

Susan Rasky, senior lecturer at the graduate school of journalism at UC Berkeley will speak.

$11 - $12.25 with luncheon, $1 with coffee, students free

848-3533

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling

Classes for Seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Oakland

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org

Saturday, Jan. 27

Clori, Tirsi & e Fileno

8 p.m.

Crowden School

1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento)

Teatro Bacchino, the Bay Area’s Baroque Opera company, will be performing Handel’s story of jealousy in love. Pre-concert talk 45 minutes before the performance.

A special workshop for two - three year-olds to meet, pet, and feed rabbits, doves, and snakes.

$22 - $25, $10 for additional family members, registration required

Call 642-5134

Book Publishing Seminar

10 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Regent Press

6020-A Adeline St.

Mark Weiman presents an overview of the business of book publishing oriented towards the author considering self-publication. From page layout to promotion and distribution, Weiman will cover all practical aspects of independent book publishing.

Learn about new employment opportunities in travel in the 21st century. Class will include a look at salaries, travel benefits, necessary education and preparation required. Bring payment by check to the class.

$5.50 for California residents

Call Marty de Souto, 981-2931

Intuitive Healing

10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

1502 Tenth St.

Marcia Emery, Ph.D., will discuss the deeper meaning of illness, the way to tune into any body part to heal it and your intuitive X-ray or body scan ability.

$85

Call 526-5510

Sunday, Jan. 28

Clori, Tirsi & e Fileno

7 p.m.

Crowden School

1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento)

Teatro Bacchino, the Bay Area’s Baroque Opera company, will be performing Handel’s story of jealousy in love. Pre-concert talk 45 minutes before the performance.

$15 - $20

Call 658-3382

Reimagining Pacific Cities

6 - 8:30 p.m.

New Pacific Studio

1523 Hearst Ave.

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.

$10 per meeting

Call 849-0217

Finns in Berkeley and Co-op Beginnings

3 - 5 p.m.

Berkeley Historical Society

1931 Center St.

A panel discussion on Finnish and Co-op history and on the Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley.

$10 donation

Call 848-0181

Mediterranean Plant Life

3:30 p.m.

UC Botanical Garden

200 Centennial Drive

Peter Dallman, author of “Plant Life in the Mediterranean Regions of the World,” will motivate attendees to look closely at California native plants and experiment with dramatic and drought-tolerant species in their own gardens.

A city program that encourages and assists low-income breastfeeding mothers is receiving a $500,000 grant to expand their growing services.

For the past 10 years, the Berkeley Breastfeeding Peer Counseling Program has helped more than 2,600 women understand the health and psychological benefits of mother’s milk over storebought formula.

With the new grant from the California Endowment, Ellen Sirbu, program director, said she’ll be able to more than double the peer counselors to 12 and provide even more services to this area’s low-income mothers.

With more resources and numbers, Sirbu said counselors will be able to provide postpartum services at Alta Bates Hospital instead of waiting for mothers to find the program on University Avenue near Interstate 80.

“It sounds crazy that women need help with breastfeeding because you may think, ‘how did they survive before?’ But maybe they don’t have the support at home,” Sirbu said.

Leticia Mendoza, a mother of four, has family in Mexico so she wasn’t able to turn to them for support when her first child was born nine years ago.

“When you have your first baby, you don’t know anything,” she said. “You have a lot of questions when you have the first baby – you’re not sure if you have enough milk or how often you should feed.”

Part of the program’s philosophy is to keep new mothers informed of basic nutrition and the benefits of breast-feeding, according to Sirbu.

“Over the years, breastfeeding has become more fashionable,” Sirbu said.

Still, a recent report by the Department of Health and Human Services states that only 64 percent of women breastfed during the first six months of pregnancy in 1998. The same study reported that African-American mothers breastfed 45 percent of the time, Hispanic women breastfed 66 percent of the time and White women breastfed 68 percent of the time.

Sirbu wants to increase that number because she said breastfeeding creates a bond between mother and child, delivers the mothers immunities to the child, reduces risk of breast cancer and saves money that would be spent on formula.

Berkeley City Councilmember Dona Spring said the program is also an excellent way to provide early parenting skills and nutrition information.

“Even educated women don’t know about nutrition. I know a woman who is a college graduate and she lives on cokes and cookies,” Spring said. “That high sugar diet is passed on to the baby. Part of the training is to show that alcohol and smoking also affect the babies health and it’s such a critical time to get nutrients to build their systems.”

Playing against a winless John Swett (Crockett) team, the St. Mary’s boys’ soccer squad survived a sluggish first half to rout the Indians, 6-1, on Wednesday.

“We wanted to try some new things this game, and we didn’t stay organized on defense in the first half,” said St. Mary’s head coach Teale Matteson, who was missing three key starters for the match due to injury.

Senior forward Pat Barry scored both St. Mary’s goals in the first half, but the Panthers’ defense split wide open for the Indians’ Morgan Edwards, who headed home a cross past St. Mary’s goalkeeper Mark Pankow to keep the game close.

Leading just 2-1 at halftime against the overmatched Swett team, the Panthers (5-7-2 overall, 4-0-1 BSAL) poured on the offense in the second half, scoring four goals and keeping the ball for most of the half.

The Panthers were clearly the better team, but weren’t able to translate their superior skill into a convincing lead until midfielder Zack Huddleston took a feed from forward Kyle Davies and beat Swett goalkeeper Mike Edwards on the near post in the 55th minute, followed by a penalty kick that was earned and converted by midfielder Bryan Warren, giving the Panthers a 4-1 lead.

Barry completed his hat trick minutes later off of another assist by Davies. Barry has been coming on strong as of late, and Matteson said the senior has earned some good fortune with hard work.

“Pat’s really coming alive, it’s been nice to see,” Matteson said. “He’s playing really smart soccer right now, and his example is leading the others. Our younger players see his how his hard work over the past four years is paying off, and it shows them what they can accomplish as well.”

A 78th minute goal by defender Nolan Horinouchi capped the scoring.

The Panthers are now set up for a showdown with Kennedy High on Jan. 26. They are the only teams left in the BSAL with no losses. St. Mary’s only blemish in league play is a tie with Piedmont two weeks ago, while Kennedy beat Piedmont 4-1 this week. Both schools figure to run the remainder of the BSAL schedule without a loss, and their matchup should decide the league’s regular season champion.

Matteson said that while the newly-formed BSAL does have some competition problems with only three teams having a realistic chance at the title, he purposely gave his team a rough preseason schedule to compensate.

“We knew this would happen. You’d like to see parity for the sake of competition, but there’s not as much parity with the new league,” he said. That’s why we went out of league for good competition. Now we have seven losses, but we’re undefeated in league.”

The City Council has called for a moratorium on massage parlors on University Avenue saying there are already more than enough and that they don’t fit in with a family-oriented atmosphere.

The recommendation, from Councilmembers Dona Spring and Margaret Breland, was sent to the planning commission which will consider a possible moratorium on the parlors, which Spring said are often associated with the adult entertainment business.

The commission will consider other solutions besides a moratorium including a complete ban on adult-oriented businesses or a more stringent application and permit process. There are currently no pending applications for new parlors on University Avenue, according to planning department officials.

The council approved the referral by a vote of 7-1, with Councilmember Betty Olds voting against. Mayor Shirley Dean was not present.

Spring said the parlors don’t fit in with the still pending University Avenue Plan which calls for prohibiting new liquor stores, auto shops and adult-oriented businesses. Acting Director of Planning and Development, Wendy Cosin, said the plan should be adopted by next year.

Spring said there are already four adult-oriented establishments in a four block area and there is no need for anymore.

“We’re building a lot of residential apartment buildings along University and we should be encouraging more community-oriented businesses like grocery stores, dentist offices and all-purpose book stores,” she said.

The four existing businesses mentioned in the recommendation were Tiki’s Hawaiian Massage, Auquette Massage, The Berkeley Sauna and Berkeley Massage and Self Healing Center.

Spring said the healing center was a reputable business and that there was no massage offered at the Berkeley Sauna though they are both adult-oriented businesses.

She said she knew less about what occurred at Tiki’s Hawaiian or Auquette Massage. “I don’t know what they do. I just know they’re not a family oriented businesses, all you see is men coming and going from them.”

Councilmember Olds strongly opposed the moratorium saying that the parlors may not fit in with the University Plan but are still tax paying businesses.

“They still provide services for a lot of people because they stay in business,” she said. “This is yet again another case of Big Sister telling everybody what to do, how to run their business and its disgusting.”

She added that many massage establishments are legitimate and should not be discouraged.

Spring said she put the recommendation on the agenda when a University Avenue neighbor called her to complain that a massage parlor had opened up in an commercial space that had previously been a dentist’s office.

According to Cosin, the business does not have a license to operate as a massage parlor. “The use was described as skin, face and body care at the time the permit was issued,” she said.

A woman who answered the phone at the alleged massage parlor, the Thai Body Works, said the business does not offer massage, only facials. However, a nameless company with the same address using the same phone number is listed in the massage section of the San Francisco Chronicle’s classified section among other massage advertisements with names like “Beautiful Loving Massage,” “Green Door Massage,” and “Kitty’s Massage.”

Cosin said the issue has not yet been placed on the Planning Commission’s agenda.

Berkeley police arrested two suspects Tuesday night for a pair of armed robberies and believe the suspects may be connected to a series of recent robberies in Berkeley and Oakland.

Berkeley Police Lt. Russell Lopes said two males, ages 15 and 16, from Richmond were arrested Tuesday night after two armed robberies occurred in the area south of the UC Berkeley campus.

Lopes said robbery detectives have considered the possibility that the suspects are linked to two other robberies that occurred in Berkeley last weekend as well as “a couple dozen” robberies in Berkeley and Oakland over the last two months.

“We are confident that they are responsible for a whole slew of robberies,” Lopes said.

Lopes said the two suspects confronted three people in their late teens at the corner of Channing Way and Fulton Street on Tuesday night at 8:45 p.m. He said they produced what appeared to be hand guns. The suspects allegedly took everything in the victims’ pockets and fled by foot. While running from the area, Lopes said the suspects confronted a 20-year-old woman in front of 2404 Fulton St., drew their guns on her and robbed her. Witnesses saw the suspects then get into a white car, Lopes said.

Officer Hugh Salas was patrolling the area and saw a white vehicle driving without its lights on before the robberies were reported. He pulled the car over for vehicle code violation without knowing of the robberies. While Salas was talking to the two men in the car, the robberies were reported to the police department and came over Salas’ radio.

The suspects were arrested and taken into custody, where they remain while detectives examine other recent robberies. Upon inspection of the guns, they were found to be replicas of semi-automatic hand guns.

Lopes said the men could be responsible for two consecutive robberies that occurred on Monday night in Berkeley and another the previous day.

At about 8:30 p.m. Monday, two men robbed a Domino’s Pizza delivery man at gun point. The victim had just completed a delivery when he was confronted by three males while returning to his car. Two of the suspects are described as black males in their early 20s, average height and build. About 30 minutes later a UC Berkeley student walking home was confronted by three people who fit the same description, less than four blocks away from the previous hold up. Similarly, two of the suspects held the student at gunpoint while the third took his belongings.

Two pedestrians were approached by two suspects at Shattuck Avenue and Bancroft Way on Sunday at 2:30 a.m. The suspects both drew guns and took the victims’ wallets before fleeing by foot. That robbery is also being linked to Tuesday’s arrests.

AC Transit entered into an umbrella agreement with Lamar to build shelters in seven cities including Berkeley, Emeryville and Albany. Each city must sign its own agreement with the agency before the project can proceed.

Lamar will construct and maintain the $8,000 shelters. Each will have two advertising spaces, four feet by six feet, that will be illuminated by florescent lighting. They will also be outfitted with garbage cans and transit maps.

Councilmember Dona Spring sought reassurances from Brendan Marcum, Lamar General Manager, that the advertising shelters will not advertise alcohol, tobacco or firearms.

Marcum assured the council that Lamar would conform to city regulations on the advertising subject matter.

“We respect the regulations of the city in which we operate,” Marcum said. “And I have to add that I have never been approached by those types of companies wanting to advertise.”

Councilmember Polly Armstrong said she was prepared to support the recommendation but had recently heard that Lamar had a reputation for maintaining the shelters for just the first year. Soon after, Armstrong said they often fall into neglect.

Marcum said the contract with AC Transit specifically calls for the shelters to be washed with an all-purpose detergent every two weeks and washed with a high-pressure spray once a month. He said the shelters would also be kept free of graffiti and debris.

The shelters have been supported by the Commissions on Aging and Disabilities, which have assisted Lamar with choosing locations.

Berkeley resident L.A. Wood said he remains skeptical about the shelters and would like to see a public hearing process established so neighbors can have a say in where they are built.

“I always thought Berkeley should have a more traditional look,” Wood said. “These thing are modernistic and ugly.”

The final locations of the all 125 shelters has not been determined yet. But Marcum said Lamar is ready to begin building the first shelters as soon as the city signs a Transit Shelter Implementation Agreement.

Two times a week Vanessa Coveau commutes from her home in Fremont to Berkeley, where she takes classes at Vista Community College.

The 21-year-old uses a wheelchair for transportation because she has Cerebral Palsy – a disorder that limits her ability to move and speak.

Like so many disabled people in Berkeley, Coveau has had trouble finding a personal attendant to help her with her daily activities. The struggle that the disabled community has had in finding qualified personal attendants in past years has led The Berkeley Center for Independent Living to make it a top priority.

Vanessa’s attendant had to quit the job for personal reasons in October, and she was left searching for a replacement for several weeks. The CIL formed the Personal Assistant Services Crisis Team last summer that is trying to spread the word that disabled people are having more difficulties than ever in getting attendants to help them with everyday chores such as cooking, cleaning and shopping.

“There hasn’t been a big difference yet, but we just started our push in the last few weeks,” said Jan Garrett, executive director for the Berkeley CIL, the first independent living center in the world.

Garrett said disabled people in Berkeley have usually found help from Cal students wanting to make a little extra money with a part-time job, but the supply of college students has diminished in the last decade. She attributes the decline of attendants to the improved economy, among other things.

“In the ’60s and ’70s people knew (the attendants program) existed and through word of mouth people would find out about being an attendant.

In the ’80s and ’90s people didn’t know this existed and they could get better jobs that pay more money.”

Scott Luebking, is in charge of technology for the crisis team, said the attendant situation has gotten so bad recently that there have even been cases of attendants stealing things from the disabled people who hired them.

He said many disabled people are considering moving into nursing homes. “That is contrary to what the idea of independent living is,” Luebking said. Like many of the people who are looking for attendants, Luebking uses a wheelchair to get around.

“Because of the attendant shortage, finding good people is hard and we are hiring people who are less than appropriate,” Luebking said.

One step the crisis team has made to recruit attendants is drafting a set of frequently asked questions about what services the attendants have to partake in.

The FAQs can be found on the CIL web site at www.cilberkeley.org along with a free e-mail group that disabled people can use to contact potential attendants. The team is also attempting to get the word out about needed attendants to people who are less likely to use the Internet. About 20 to 25 businesses from Berkeley and Oakland have each donated 500 to 3,000 printed copies of those FAQs, which the team has posted in envelopes around the university and local community colleges.

In return, the CIL, which is working with no budget, doesn’t have to spend any money on publicity. The goal of such publicity is to end misconceptions about helping the disabled.

Luebking said one reason for there being fewer attendants now is because people think they need to have prior experience to take on such a job.

He said people do not have to be medically trained for many attendant positions.

“If you are afraid or uncomfortable with somebody, then you won’t want to work with them,” he said.

Some attendants are hired to help bathe or feed the disabled, but many just run errands or clean houses.

The crisis team also wants people to be aware of the benefits of becoming an attendant.

Most attendants get paid above minimum wage, and pre-medical students can put the experience on their résumés and work adjustable hours. Most disabled people pay the attendants themselves based on the type of work they do.

Some attendants are paid through the county government or private insurance providers.

“It is good because it gets the community involved,” said Garrett, who hopes the other 350 independent living centers in the country can follow Berkeley’s model.

NEW YORK — The confidence of the American household is something to behold.

Even if it did slip in December on the cold reality of an impending sharp economic slowdown, it remains high as a kite in spring.

This in spite of a stock market that since last March has subtracted $1.9 trillion from household wealth, a sum that in earlier years would have been incomprehensible, even in terms of the federal budget.

The blow hasn’t exactly been shrugged off, but in other years it might have been a fatal blow. In 2000, however, there were few if any signs of panic.

And only in December did the worries clearly manifest themselves.

The wealth decline began last March, but sales of new and existing homes continued at record-high levels. For the second year in a row car and light truck sales exceeded 17 million units.

And investors kept investing.

The public did pull back some in December, when retailer expectations weren’t met. But what could retailers have expected, when the stock market decline alone had taken nearly $50 billion out of consumer spending.

That $50 billion sum was a huge bite out of the so-called wealth effect, the factor that, as so many economists explained, allowed people to feel secure about borrowing and spending even as they failed to save.

The $50 billion figure, calculated by Standard & Poor’s economist David A. Wyss, is based on what he estimates is the propensity of households to consume wealth at a 2.5 percent rate. And even with that much cut out, retail sales didn’t decline – only failed to meet hopes.

Even today, Wyss points out, consumer sentiment is at a higher level than at any time before 1999. Currently, the University of Michigan survey is in the high 90s. In the past, pre-recession readings were in the 70s.

And now, perhaps as unrealistically optimistic as the earlier beliefs that the economy would expand indefinitely, ordinary folks are looking for signs of an upturn.

Even before a soft landing is achieved.

Specifically: expectations of a tax cut, confidence that the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates, signs of bottom-fishing in stocks, continued interest in real estate, and borrowing to sustain life styles.

And those consumers who delve deeply into the economic numbers might even be encouraged by the realization that, while the economy has lost its bullish power, it may still be expanding, albeit at a slowed rate.

Wyss, for one, cites a slowdown from a 5.1 percent expansion rate in 2000 to perhaps 2.7 percent in 2001 as enough to cause real pain.

But others might prefer to observe that such a slowdown would still be an expansion rather than a contraction. And that what we call a slowdown today is about the average expansion that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s.

VIENNA, Austria — OPEC announced Wednesday that it will trim its official crude oil production by 5 percent next month — a move likely to anger the cartel’s biggest customers but one that won’t necessarily hurt consumers at the gasoline pump.

The cuts, to take effect Feb. 1, are aimed at keeping crude prices firm ahead of an expected slowdown in U.S. economic growth and diminishing seasonal demand for refined products such as heating oil. Delegates of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries approved details of the cuts during a formal meeting at the cartel’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria.

The 1.5 million-barrel-a-day decrease in production is sure to disappoint the governments of many oil-importing nations.

CNN cuts 400 jobs,

refurbishes structure

NEW YORK — In its biggest shake-up since being founded 21 years ago, CNN is revamping its newsgathering structure, cutting some 400 jobs and appointing three senior news executives. The network has been struggling with a ratings slump and is gearing up for life under the newly created AOL Time Warner Inc. media empire.

The shake-up announced Wednesday, which comes less than a week after CNN parent Time Warner closed its merger with America Online, will concentrate CNN’s sprawling news operations under a central authority to coordinate coverage for its various TV outlets and associated Web sites.

Proposal for biotech food information on the Net

WASHINGTON — Seeking to ease public anxiety about genetically engineered food, the government proposed a mandatory review process for new biotech products that will include posting scientific data on the Internet.

The Food and Drug Administration relies on biotech companies for voluntary consultation with the agency before the release of new biotech crops.

In addition to the proposal Wednesday for mandatory review, the FDA also is proposing voluntary labeling guidelines for foods that claim either to be nonbiotech or to have special biotech ingredients.

Companies would have to notify FDA of new biotech products at least four months before they are to be put on the market.

Class-action suit brought against Verizon Wireless

WASHINGTON — Verizon Communications is being sued by customers frustrated when it took weeks or months to get their high-speed Internet access installed. The class-action effort is an attempt to stop Verizon from signing new subscribers as well as to force compensation of existing customers.

The complaint, filed this week in Superior Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that Verizon was aware that it would be unable to provide high-speed service as promised and knew that its customers would experience significant disruptions and significant delays in obtaining technical support.

The claim alleges that Verizon signs up over 3,000 new customers per day while knowing that the company cannot support so many.

NEW YORK — Investors went on a technology buying spree Wednesday, but retreated on second thoughts about the market’s actual strength in a decelerating economy. The Nasdaq composite index ended the day with a moderate gain, but blue chips closed lower.

The pullback reflected Wall Street’s concerns as weak earnings reports flow in. Although many expect the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates again later this month, some question whether it will be enough to reinvigorate the economy and company profits.

“Are we in a slowdown? Are we in a recession? No one knows,” said Larry Wachtel, market analyst at Prudential Securities. “The market is discounting for what it can see, but it can’t really see that well going forward. That’s the reason why investors are hesitating.”

After months of worrying about how moderating economic growth would affect corporate profits, investors had a mixed reaction when some of those reports were actually released. Early in the session, they appeared to shrug off a handful of gloomy forecasts, but by late in the day, the jitters returned.

Sector bellwether Intel slipped 88 cents to $30.50 after initially rising on an earnings report that met expectations but forecast a 15 percent revenue drop for the next quarter. Analysts said the report wasn’t as bad as investors feared, but not good enough to keep the stock up.

— The Associated Press

After the market closed, Apple Computer released earnings that failed to meet already reduced earnings expectations. The stock rose 88 cents in after-hours trading as investors digested the news; it had fallen 31 cents to $16.81 in the regular session.

“Perhaps we’re getting to the time when for most companies, excluding some technology stocks, the bad news seems to be built into the stock price,” said James Meyer, director of research at Janney Montgomery Scott. “But that doesn’t mean we’re going to have a bull market.”

“We have to decipher whether we’re in a typical slowdown that might last for two or three quarters ... or whether the decline is going to be longer and the turnaround will be a bit later.”

Wall Street’s hopes for another interest rate cut got a possible boost from a Federal Reserve report Wednesday showing output at U.S. factories plunged by 1.1 percent in December, the biggest setback since the end of the last recession in 1991. The hope is that the data — the latest sign that the economy is slowing — will persuade the Fed to lower interest rates when it meets later this month.

In another report, the Labor Department said the Consumer Price Index showed inflation at the consumer level rose a moderate 0.2 percent in December amid a drop in gasoline prices.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners 13 to 11 on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated volume came to 1.62 billion shares, ahead of the 1.44 billion reported Tuesday.

Power officials brought California back from the brink of rolling blackouts Tuesday afternoon, but Berkeley city officials were already doing all they could to set a good example and conserve energy.

“We’re trying all the energy savings ideas we can think of placing setting thermostats lower for heating and higher for cooling,” said Renee Cardinaux, director of Berkeley Public Works. “We’re already cutting back on energy this year so there’s very little to cut back on.”

While residents stocked up on candles and blankets, Berkeley Police said they were prepared to haul portable stop signs out of storage to areas where stop lights are out.

“We have a standard plan should we lose power because of a huge storm or involuntary blackouts,” said Berkeley Police Lt. Russell Lopes, adding that police and fire headquarters would not be affected by the blackouts.

“We don’t consider this an emergency because we’re still able to provide services we always do,” he said.

The California Independent System Operator declared a Stage 3 emergency yesterday morning after power reserves dipped below one and a half percent. If power reserves are depleted, then the ISO institutes rolling black-outs for hours at a time. Cold weather, increased energy consumption and a much-criticized deregulation of power utilities have contributed to the current energy crisis. Most recently, out-of-state suppliers have been fearful of selling energy to California energy companies because of their fragile financial situation.

But conservation efforts combined with the shut-down of two large water pumps that send water to Southern California and the purchase of some power from the Pacific Northwest, ISO spokeswoman Lori O’Donley said the lights will remain on – for now.

“We’re not anticipating any black-outs,” she said.

Although this is the second time this week that a Stage 3 emergency has been declared, Stage 2 alerts – in which power reserves dip below 5 percent – are becoming a daily occurrence.

When a Stage 2 is declared, Berkeley Energy Officer Neil De Snoo said the city dims its street lights and shuts off ball field and tennis court lights. Electric vehicles are unplugged and in city offices, De Snoo said lights are shut off and office equipment is programmed to sleep when it is not used.

De Snoo said the conservation efforts have reduced the city’s base power load by 30 percent and reduced its use during peak hours by 40 percent.

“It’s tricky, but there’s really a lot that can be done,” he said. “There’s a tremendous amount of peripherals in offices and if they’re not turned off, they’re drawing juice.”

At Berkeley’s Alta Vista Hospital, administrators are cutting power use by shutting off office lights at 6 p.m., said spokesperson Carolyn Kemp.

But even in a major disaster, Kemp said generators keep the hospital prepared to operate without power for days.

“We can’t close ventilators down in certain areas,” she said. “We remain full-service because we have to.”

Workers at A Honey Rest Home on Mc Gee Avenue said they stay prepared for any emergency – including possible black-outs.

“We have flashlights, candles and canned food,” said Ophelia Montro, manager of the care facility. “We have enough heaters for everyone.”

Judges of the Superior Court, attorneys, and other justice system representatives will be present to hear the concerns of the public and to answer their questions. 268-7610

Stagebridge Free Acting

& Storytelling

Classes for Seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Oakland

Call 444-4755 or visit

www.stagebridge.org

Environmental Sampling

Project Task Force

6:30 p.m.

First Congregational Church of Berkeley

2345 Channing Way

Discussions will include the Berkeley Lab responses to comments on the Tritium sampling and analysis plan.

Genetically Modified Food Teach-In and Strategy Session

7 p.m.

Ecology Center

2530 San Pablo Ave.

Teach-in led by the Genetic Engineering Education Network, followed by a general strategy session and discussion of upcoming events by the Organic Consumers Association Organizer Simon Harris, Ecology Center’s Steve Evans, and other local activists.

Call 548-2220 x239

Telegraph Area Association

Community Planning Committee

9 a.m.

TAA

2509 Haste St.

To be discussed will be southside planning position for TAA to support and strategy to increase faculty/staff housing in southside.

Call 649-9500

Telegraph Area Association

Membership Committee

9 a.m.

2509 Haste St.

To be discussed will be a review of workplan objectives and a review of workplan goals.

Call 649-9500

Thursday, Jan. 18

Simplicity Forum

7 - 8:30 p.m.

Berkeley Library

Claremont Branch

2940 Benveue Ave.

Facilitated by Cecile Andrews, author of “Circles of Simplicity,” learn about this movement whose philosophy is “the examined life richly lived.” Call 549-3509 or visit www.seedsofsimplicity.org

Duomo Readings Open Mic.

6:30 - 9 p.m.

Cafe Firenze

2116 Shattuck Ave.

With featured poet Ayodele Nzinga and host Mark States.

644-0155

Combating Congestion

1 - 5 p.m.

Pauley Ballroom

Student Union Building

UC Berkeley

A one-day transportation conference featuring Martin Wachs, of UC Berkeley, speaking on transportation finance and Elizabeth Deakin, also of UC Berkeley, speaking on the relationship of growth and congestion.

Call 642-1474

Become Berkeley City Smart

7:30 p.m.

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore

1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose)

In a slide presentation & talk, Berkeley resident, restaurant and movie critic John Weil takes attendees on a unique tour through the rich artistic and cultural heritage of Berkeley and Oakland. Free

Call 843-3533

— compiled by

Chason Wainwirght

Disabled American Veterans Chapter 25 Meeting

8 p.m.

Veterans Memorial Building

1931 Center St.

Any woman who has had a relative serve in the U.S. military is invited to attend and join the auxiliary.

Call 916-372-8364

Journey Across China

7 p.m.

Recreational Equipment, Inc.

1338 San Pablo Ave.

Eugene Tsiang, Shanghai native, will give a slide presentation on his two-month journey last spring by train and four-wheel drive vehicle across China’s Shaanxi, Gansu and Xinjiang Provinces. Free

Call 527-4140

Free “Quit Smoking” Class

5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

South Berkeley Senior Center

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees.

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us

“Origin and History of the Pathways”

7 - 9 p.m.

Live Oak Park Recreation Center

1200 Shattuck Ave.

Paul Grunland, board member of the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association, will speak on the history of Berkeley’s pathways. Free

Call 527-2693

Telegraph Area Association

Economic Development Committee

3:30 p.m.

Sather Gate Garage Conference Room

2431 Channing Way

To be discussed will be a holiday marketing update, Telegraph power outages, and the Sather Gate parking garage.

Call 649-9500

Berkeley Metaphysical Toastmasters Club

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.

2515 Hillegass Ave.

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.

Call 869-2547

Friday, Jan. 19

Strong Women - Writers &

Heroes of Literature

1 - 3 p.m.

North Berkeley Senior Center

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.

Call 549-2970

“Evidence-Based Practice - How it May Effect You”

11:45 a.m. luncheon

12:30 p.m. speaker

Berkeley City Club

2315 Durant Ave.

Eileen Gambrill, professor in the department of social welfare at UC Berkeley with speak.

$11 - $12.25 with luncheon, $1 with coffee, students free

848-3533

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling

Classes for Seniors

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

First Congregational Church

2501 Harrison St.

Oakland

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org

Pardon Leonard Pelltier Prayer Circle

Noon - 1:30 p.m.

Oakland Federal Building

Clay (between 12th & 14th)

Oakland

The Pelltier Action Committee are asking President Clinton to pardon political prisoner Leonard Pelltier. Today is the last day Clinton can pardon Pelltier.

Call 464-4534 or e-mail: thepac2000@hotmail.com

Saturday, Jan. 20

On Death & Dying

9 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Berkeley Buddhist Temple

2121 Channing Way (between Shattuck & Fulton)

Kathleen Gustin, Zen priest, and Rev. Ronald Nakasone of the Graduate Theological Union speak at this workshop designed to help those considering their own ending or that of loved ones.

$20 per person (box lunch included)

Call Ken Kaji, 601-5394

Rockridge Writers

3:30 - 5:30 p.m.

Spasso Coffeehouse

6021 College Ave.

Poets and writers meet to critique each other’s work. “Members’ work tends to be dark, humorous, surreal, or strange.”

e-mail: berkeleysappho@yahoo.com

Corinne Innis Reception

5 - 7 p.m.

Women’s Cancer Resource Center

3023 Shattuck Ave.

Paying homage to her subconscious, Innis uses rich colors in her acrylic paintings.

Glen Kitzenberger discusses what homeowners need to know before building or remodeling. Skip Wenz discusses the pros and cons of building an addition. Free

Call 525-7610

Free Puppet Shows

1:30 & 2:30 p.m.

Hall of Health

2230 Shattuck Ave.

The Kids on the Block, an award-winning educational puppet troupe, includes puppets with such conditions as cerebral palsy, blindness and Down syndrome.

Bengal Basin Seminar

3 p.m.

Warren Hall, Room 22

UC Berkeley

Part of the Third International India Bangladesh Symposium for reducing the impact of toxic chemicals on the Bengal Basin. With World Poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Call 841-3253

Sunday, Jan. 21

Live Oak Concert

7:30 p.m.

Berkeley Art Center

1275 Walnut St.

The music of J.S. Bach and Antonio Vivaldi played by the trio of Marvin Sanders, flute, Becky Lyman, harpsichord, and Alexander Kort, cello.

$8 - $10

Call 644-6893

Saying No To Power

10:30 a.m.

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center

1414 Walnut St. (at Rose)

Bill Mandel, author and activist talks about his new book.

$4 - $5

848-0237

Single Parents and Step & Blended

Family Interfaith Fellowship

4 - 6 p.m.

Beth El Synagogue

2301 Vine St. (at Spruce)

An interfaith and very open group that welcomes parents and their children of all affiliations and orientations. This meetings discussion topics will be a supportive and advice oriented look at dating.

Cogeneration (cogen) is electricity generation right on-site at local apartment houses, hospitals, schools, malls, and factories using the aleft over heat for heating or airconditioning buildings. It is double use of the energy with 80 percent efficiency in contrast with the 35 or 40 percent at remote central power plants where the heat has no use and is deliberately wasted, as can be seen by the tall cooling towers of nuclear plants.

There is also an energy loss of from 8 to 15 percent carrying the electricity over tower lines long distances. Cogen is much more likely to be able to be used after a big storm or earthquake when tower lines may fall down and should be in police and fire buildings. Cogen is a form of competition for the monopoly electric utilities and has been discouraged by both PG&E and So. Cal Edison, who claim it may ‘damage’ their networks. Actually excess juice from cogen can be fed easily back into the network.

In U.S. cogen is about 7 percent of the total electricity, while in Germany and Sweden it is as much as 35 and 50 percent. Cogen is an old concept, a 1907 text discusses it. Cogen can be completely automatic, starting or stopping as needed. It is a very efficient and dependable source of energy at individual sites. Many engine manufacturers publish extensive data about use of their product for cogeneration.

Charles L. Smith

Berkeley

Liars can take pets anywhere

Editor:

I was startled by the one-sided tone of your article “Service animals provoke quandary” (1/12/2001). Your reporter John Geluardi presented Michael Minasian’s unsupported claims that he is disabled and that his dog King is a service animal as fact, and repeated Minasian's tendentious reading of the Justice Department's guidelines regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act as if it were not debatable.

As Minasian would have it, anyone wishing to bring a pet into a restaurant need only claim that they are disabled and that their pet is a service animal. Under the ADA, he believes, neither restaurant staff nor police can require any further explanation or documentation. In other words, people willing to lie could take their pets anywhere.

In reality, the Justice Department's ADA guidelines are not so categorical. The relevant phrase reads, “documentation generally may not be required as a condition for providing service to an individual accompanied by a service animal.” The case of a person with no apparent disabilities whose putative service dog is performing no apparent service seems like precisely the kind of reasonable exception to the general rule that prompted the guidelines’ authors to say “generally may not” rather than “may never.”

Robert Lauriston

Berkeley

Green Party is moving ahead

Editor:

In the noisy, disconcerting aftermath of the November 7 general election, which saw an unceasing five week legal struggle in Florida, pitting the Democratic and Republican parties against one another, an important political milestone was achieved that, until now, has remained below the mainstream media’s radar screen.

In a January 3 profile of Sebastopol, California’s newly elected Green Party City Council majority, The New York Times confirmed that many greens, progressives and independents have known that the green party now ranks as the nation’s third largest political party in terms of total number of elected offices held. This development is significant.

Since gaining ballot status nearly twelve years ago, the Green Party has grown exponentially in the number of candidates fielded and/or elected across the country. During the 2000 election cycle, 33 Green Party candidates won elections in a dozen states, giving the party elected officials in a total of 21 states. Over 200 Green Party candidates completed for elective offices during 2000.

The Green Party’s electoral successes reflect a strategy to build power from the local level — the greens in office all serve in municipal, county or regional governments, from mayor in five California cities, including Santa Cruz and Santa Monica, to the drainage/flood control commissioner of Charlevoix, Michigan.

In Northern California, greens won a large number of races. In San Francisco, two former Democratic Party candidates, Supervisor Matt Gonzalez and School Commissioner Mark Sanchez, switched to the Green Party. In Berkeley, greens hold seats on the city’s three most important elected bodies: City Council, School Board and Rent Stabilization Board.

Meanwhile, in Oakland, unsuccessful Green Party City Council at-large candidate Rebbecca Kaplin captured 44 percent of Oakland’s total vote against an entrenched Democratic Party incumbent, an impressive achievement given that Oakland voters are overwhelmingly registered democrats.

As the Green Party prepares for the 2002 election cycle, the party’s prospects are indeed promising — with the organizational collaboration of Green Party 2000 presidential candidate Ralph Nader, the party will continue to build electoral strength at the local/regional level and establish a foundation for challenging the Democratic and Republican parties in future elections, including state and federal offices.

The Green Party, to use an old expression, is in for the long haul, with an unshakable commitment to the years and decades ahead. For more information, contact www.greenparty.org

Chris Kavanagh

City of Berkeley Housing Advisory Commission

Berkeley

A wonderful

community!

Editor:

Our daughter, Mary Fran Stevens and her roomates survived a fire on Hearst Avenue that destroyed all their belongings on Jan. 8. When we received that dreaded call in the middle of the night we really didn't know where to turn. As a mother 5,000 miles away in Virginia, I agonized over this tragedy, but have been reassured that everything will be all right thanks to the compassion and generosity of Mary Fran's newly found community of friends.

The outpouring of support —from housing and clothes to hugs after sifting through the charred remains — is truly inspiring. I want to thank everyone in the neighorhood and especially Mary Fran's friends at the Berkeley Repertory Theater for being there for our dear and only child.

Margie Stevens

Montross, Virginia

Thank you

Editor:

I wish to thank the Daily Planet and the 138 voters in November’s District five city council race.

That’s two percent of the vote my first time out, per vote expenses of campaign: 53 cents. Roughly figured, if I had the same size campaign budget as Mim Hawley (congratulations Mim!) it would give my campaign over 50 percent of the voters citywide.

This, of course, has the little wheels in my brain revolving with ideas about Berkeley’s 2002 political season. Berkeley, thanks for the kind and real.

The Department of Parks and Waterfront is asking a consultant to suggest ways to prevent foul smelling algae and attract more wildlife to the three lagoons at Aquatic Park.

The City Council has approved a plan to enter into a $70,000 contract with Laurel Marcus and Associates to develop a Natural Resource Management Plan to reduce algae blooms by increasing the lagoons circulation with the bay. The consultant will also include a plan to enhance bird and other wildlife in the park, according to Waterfront manager Cliff Marchetti.

Laurel Marcus and Associates will manage a team of environmental consultants, including water scientists and landscapers, to determine a workable plan.

The park was developed in the 1930s during construction of Interstate 80 and consists of marshlands, lawns and pathways which wind along a large lagoon and two smaller ones. The park is on the west side of the freeway between the Ashby and University avenue exits.

When the park was developed, concrete tubes were placed beneath the freeway to allow bay water to flow in and out of the lagoon. The five, 24-inch wide tubes that service the main lagoon were poorly placed, according Mark Liolios, a member of Friends of Aquatic Park. In addition, he said the tubes often become clogged and have to be cleared with high-pressure spray. Because of their location under the freeway, Caltrans is responsible for tube maintenance.

“It has been historically hard to maintain good quality water because the lagoons are relatively large, isolated bodies of shallow water,” Marchetti said.

There are several options the team of consultants will consider. They range from replacing the tubes to placing additional tubes at more strategic places. Marchetti said replacing the tubes would be extremely difficult because of their location under the freeway. There are no cost estimates for any of the possible fixes.

The lagoon becomes susceptible to algae growth if the lagoon is not constantly refreshed with bay water. The bay provides the lagoon with cold temperatures, salt and oxygen which reduces algae growth and helps support wildlife.

Algae blooms deplete the water of oxygen and if the lagoon does not have access to the bay, it results in the suffocation of lagoon fish, according to Liolios.

“About four years ago, after Caltrans stopped cleaning out the tubes there was a red tide that killed hundreds of striped bass, some as big as 30 inches long,” he said. “Caltrans is now back on a regular schedule of cleaning out the tubes.”

Another goal of the consultants will be to suggest way to attract more birds to the lagoons. Currently there a variety of birds that feed and nest around the lake. “Depending on the time of year, Ducks, egrets and Cormorants can be seen around the lagoon,” Liolios said.

He added that one possibility to attract more birds is creating manmade islands in the lagoon that would provide nesting birds with a predator-free environment for nesting.

Principal Frank Lynch arrived at Berkeley High School in August, to facilities burned down from arson and a provisional school accreditation.

Before the new principal has been allowed to get his bearing with the current problems, he’ll be faced with more change.

This upcoming semester he’ll be working under an interim superintendent, with a parental mandate to fix the gap in achievement between white students and students of color at Berkeley High.

In the meantime, construction on school buildings will bring noise, dust, and loss of power and water.

Lynch said he hadn’t realized the extent of the troubles that beset Berkeley High when he took the position. “In the first couple of days I was like, Oh my gosh," he said.

But after four months in school Lynch has had more time to assess Berkeley High from the inside.

“It’s an interesting place,” he said.

While seeming to face a perpetual string of crisis situations, the new principal has continued implementing plans to improve the atmosphere at Berkeley High.

An immediate issue facing Lynch is parents’ demand to do a wide scale intervention for 250 Berkeley High ninth-graders, many of them African-American and Latino, at risk of failing a class. The parent group – Parents of Children of African Descent – are bringing the gross disparity in grades between white students and students of color at Berkeley High to the attention of the community.

“The diversity of the school is its strength and weakness,” said Lynch.

He agreed that the student achievement gap as the single most important issue facing the school. "Everything else is tinkering around the edges,” he said. “Whatever we do it has to be focused on student achievement.”

To Lynch, all components of creating a functional school are inextricably linked to that end result – achievement.

Security is a case in point. Lynch said that security, and the perception of a safe school, is necessary for students to benefit from education.

“If kids don’t feel safe here,” he said. “They can’t perform the way they need to be performing.” Related to questions of security is the fact that students who feel afraid “don’t come,” said Lynch, creating empty seats and a day’s educational loss.

But rather than getting trouble-making kids off-campus, Lynch believes the school should be better about keeping them on campus and supervised.

“I would say the biggest problem is attendance,” he said, adding that attendance and security function in tandem. Students perpetrating the most egregious discipline offenses, fighting or setting fires, are often students that aren’t in the classroom, but should be.

Lynch said that although students may arrive on the school grounds, they don’t always make that crucial step though the door of the classroom.

“They’re truant in the sense that they’re not in class,” he said. “They’re hanging around.”

This next semester Lynch hopes to enforce attendance policies more aggressively by changing the system of parent notification. Currently a voice dialing system automatically calls parents when their students are absent, and a letter is sent home.

But, said Lynch, “It doesn’t take kids long to figure out (the system).” Messages left on answering machines get erased by students before parents can hear them. Letters may just disappear. Lynch said for any parental contact to happen, “it has to be a human.”

“I want an old fashioned truant officer who will go around, pick kids up and go to their home,” he said. “You need someone who can make the home contact.” In the mean time he hopes a personal phone call, at home or at work, will serve the purpose.

While returning to the basics to solve attendance problems, Lynch is bringing new concepts to Berkeley High to try and change the structure of the school. One proposal is block scheduling for two of the five days per school week.

Instead of going to eight classes, students would attend four classes one day, for double periods, and then would take the remaining classes the following day. Lynch said that the more substantial instruction time would allow teachers to create longer projects without needing to assemble and disassemble them within one class period. An additional benefit, he said, is the increased face time between students and teachers which allows them to get to know each other better. The block scheduling proposal will be voted on by the teachers, and students are invited to provide input.

Like the new surveillance cameras to be placed on campus, and the construction set to begin this semester, many changes coming to Berkeley High have long been in the works.

One of the projects Lynch endorses involves creating small schools within the larger high school. Berkeley High has already received a grant to begin planning various possibilities for smaller schools. The only existing small school, Communications Arts and Sciences, is so popular that students must compete to grab one of the 60 slots available per year.

But no matter how popular any one concept is, one of Lynch’s tenets is to reaffirm the diversity that exists in the Berkeley High community, by providing may different learning environments. “I want to provide options,” he said. “I don’t honestly believe in a community as diverse as this that everybody wants to go in the same direction.”

At the meeting of the Board of Education tonight, Berkeley Unified School District officials are expected to announce the name of the interim superintendent who will oversee the district when the current superintendent, Jack McLaughlin, leaves at the end of January.

The interim superintendent will hold the position until a permanent superintendent is selected.

The school board is currently conducting a nationwide search and the selection is estimated to take place by July 1.

The board interviewed candidates in closed session last Friday, and will discuss the appointment of a new superintendent in closed session, beginning at 6 p.m.

School Based Dental Program

Staff will present the Healthy Start Dental Program to offer dental services to Berkeley first, second and fifth graders.

According to reports from the county and state, 37 percent of second graders and 43 percent of tenth graders suffered from untreated dental decay. Although dental sealants – which protect teeth with extra covering – can prevent the large majority of dental decay, less than 10 percent of Alameda county 15 year olds have received that treatment.

The Healthy Start dental program would provide education and on-site dental exams and services to students in school, as well as community referrals for outside dental care.

Intervention Proposal

Parents of Children of African Descent, a Berkeley High parents group, will present their proposal to intervene on behalf of students failing one or more classes in their first semester at Berkeley High.

The group hopes to implement a comprehensive plan to affect the vast gap in student achievement between white students and students of color at the high school. They are asking for support and resources from the board of education and the community at large to implement their plan, which would create a intensive math and reading courses, and provide individual case management for each failing student.

Two Way Immersion Program

The board will review proposals on how to extend the two-way immersion program, teaching students in both Spanish and English, during the fourth and fifth grades at Rosa Parks and Cragmont elementary schools.

Currently the immersion program serves native English and Spanish speakers at Rosa Parks, Cragmont and LeConte schools.

Expulsion closed session

Also in closed session tonight, the board will discuss the expulsion of eight students from the Berkeley Unified School District. Prior to the case being reviewed by the board, each student’s case was reviewed by an expulsion committee, which can then recommend either expulsion, or suspension of expulsion.

“There’s clearly some situations that require a school district to recommend expulsion,” said Alex Palou, former director of student services, in an interview earlier this month. But, he said, “It’s a measure of last resort.”

After the expulsion committee reviews a students’ case, the board of education reviews it, and can determine whether or not to expel the students. If a student is expelled from the district, the district is required to find a new place for the student in another school district, or in the Rock LaFleche Community Day School, which provides services to troubled youth.

The most a student can be expelled from district is two semesters for any one incident, at which point the school district is required to accept the students again.

The board will meet in public session at 7:30 in the Board meeting room on the second floor of the School District building, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

KPFA radio will continue its live broadcast of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings for Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft through Thursday.

The broadcast of the hearings began Tuesday morning.

Phil Osejueda, assistant general manager and development, said the broadcast is in the tradition of other controversial hearings KPFA has broadcast, dating to the hearings for Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.

“We feel that a lot of listeners are interested in this particular situation,” he said.

When asked what he thinks about John Ashcroft, Osejueda said, “He has too much baggage. He has a lot of opinions that are contrary to laws that are on the books right now.”

He went on to say that he believes Ashcroft could have trouble enforcing laws that go against his own morals.

Conservatives, however, have argued that Ashcroft’s clean record proves he will uphold all the laws in the United States.

Bob Strawn, representative of the Northern Alameda County Republican Committee, did not return calls for comment.

The coverage of the confirmation hearings will be anchored by Larry Bensky, a familiar voice on KPFA, who most notably covered the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987.

During the broadcast Tuesday, Bensky said he believes it should be KPFA’s mission to bring important events like the Ashcroft hearings to the people. Bensky called Ashcrofts nomination, “the first controversy of the Bush administration.”

Bensky will also welcome a variety of progressive analysts and commentators during the broadcasts.

The live broadcast will likely get under way by 7 a.m. KPFA is located at 94.1 FM. The broadcast can also be heard on the Internet.

The Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley has acquired personal papers of poet Gwendolyn Brooks, the first African American writer to win the Pulitzer Prize.

Included in the collection are manuscripts of poems and speeches, family photos, awards, journals and 50 year's worth of her correspondence with her publishers.

Brooks, who died in December at the age of 83, gave her blessing to the university's acquisition of her papers. In 1997, she read at the university's Wheeler Auditorium. At that time, more than 700 people were turned away, and Brooks signed books until midnight.

The granddaughter of a slave, Brooks appeared on the literary scene in the post-Harlem Renaissance period. Her poetry promoted an understanding of African American culture, and although it explored issues of racism and poverty, those issues did not limit her poetry, says former poet laureate and Berkeley professor Robert Hass.

``If any one American writer naturalized the facts of black life, looked at it as lives people led, lives that happened to be inescapably caught in a racialized world but not absolutely defined

by that fact, it was she,'' he said. ``This curiosity, this art without a social agenda, was a kind of declaration of independence.''

According to Berkeley professor Susan Schweik, Brooks used traditional forms for radical, innovative ends, and mentored black and women poets, and pioneered writing of race and gender issues.

Her poem ``The Mother'' is believed to be the first poem written in the United States to talk about abortion. She read that poem at a gathering of American poets honored at the White House in 1980 by then-President Jimmy Carter.

Brooks was prolific, and her writing includes children's books, an autobiography, one novel, a collection of poetry about South Africa and other volumes of poetry, including ``We Real Cool,''

which was published in 1966.

Brooks, who is said to have started her writing career as a child by sending poems to her local community newspaper to surprise her parents, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950 for her second book of poetry, ``Annie Allen.'' That book was a series of poems about a girl growing up in Chicago.

The Berkeley collection, which was retrieved from one of Brook's homes in the South Side of Chicago, is made up of 22 boxes of uncatalogued material from the 1930s to 1980.

The materials will add to the Bancroft Library's African American writers collection, which was launched in 1978 and provides access to thousands of books, manuscripts, correspondence

The American Lung Association, the Planning and Conservation League and other groups said the staff proposals went too far and clashed with the board’s decision last September to keep the mandate with some modifications.

“It compromises the whole integrity of the program,” said Jamie Knapp, a spokeswoman for the California ZEV Alliance, a coalition of environmental and health groups.

Steve Douglas, director of environmental affairs for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said the staff proposals would not go far enough “to reduce and mitigate the high cost of (electric) vehicles and batteries.”

The mandate requires that at least 10 percent of the new cars and light trucks offered for sale in California by major manufacturers emit little or no pollution, starting in 2003.

Zero-emission vehicles – currently that means battery-powered electric vehicles – would have to make up at least 4 percent of new autos, although manufacturers could reduce that number by offering them for sale before 2003 or making cars that get more than 100 miles between charges.

Manufacturers also could delay compliance for a year by producing two years’ worth of the vehicles by the end of 2004.

The regulations would require production of about 22,000 electric vehicles a year.

There are roughly 2,300 on the road now, not counting gasoline-powered cars that have been converted to run on batteries.

Automakers contend the electric vehicles will be difficult to sell or lease because of their higher cost and relatively short range between charges.

They have lobbied for repeal or a significant reduction in the mandate.

Environmental and health groups say the electric vehicles now on the road are popular with their drivers and that the mandate is continuing to force improvements in range and will eventually drive down vehicle cost.

The staff of the Air Resources Board suggested allowing manufacturers to meet a greater share of the mandate by selling vehicles that use other emission-cutting technology, including so-called hybrids that have both gasoline and electric motors.

That change, coupled with other manufacturer incentives proposed by the staff, would reduce the number of battery-powered vehicles required to as few as 4,650 in 2003, said Knapp.

The board is scheduled to consider the staff recommendations at a hearing on Jan. 25.

“Petroleum fuels will never lead us to a clean air future,” Ken Smith, a spokesman for the American Lung Association, said at a news conference outside the ARB offices. “Petroleum is very similar to tobacco. We are addicted to it. We have to get off it.”

An ARB spokesman, Jerry Martin, said the staff proposals were designed to make the mandate workable, not to respond to auto industry concerns.

“I don’t think the staff is any more affected by automakers than they are by environmental groups,” he said. ————

Grays, charged Tuesday morning, was the only person prosecuted so far in a Northridge earthquake-related scandal that drove him and elected Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush from office last year.

Prosecutors say Grays personally benefited from his control of the California Research and Assistance Fund, a foundation created by Quackenbush with about $12 million in insurer settlement money.

Quackenbush let a half-dozen insurers accused of mishandling claims filed after the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake escape up to $3 billion in fines by contributing to the fund. He has acknowledged that though the fund was supposed to finance earthquake research and assist consumers, none of the $6 million it spent went for either purpose.

Grays inappropriately directed $263,000 from CRAF to Skillz Athletic Foundation, then received $170,900 back from Skillz in a kickback scheme, prosecutors say. Skillz ran a sports camp attended by Quackenbush’s children.

Grays pleaded guilty to two counts of mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, charges that together carry a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison and roughly $1 million in fines.

He is cooperating with state and federal investigators, who continue probing the creation and use of the fund, defense attorney Bill Portanova said.

U.S. District Judge David Levy released Grays on his own recognizance pending sentencing April 12. Grays declined to comment to reporters at the federal courthouse in Sacramento.

An Assembly committee investigating the creation of CRAF found that the idea to divert the insurers’ donations to CRAF and other nonprofit funds came from Grays. There is evidence “Mr. Grays actually controlled and ran CRAF,” frequently from his insurance department office next to Quackenbush’s, the Assembly Insurance Committee said in an August report.

Grays resigned in April. He refused to answer questions at an Assembly committee hearing, invoking his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. Quackenbush, one of only two Republicans to hold statewide office in California, resigned in July under threat of impeachment. He and his family later moved to Hawaii.

Quackenbush has denied wrongdoing, but admitted that none of CRAF’s spending went to the earthquake research and consumer assistance it was supposed to finance.

Instead, it paid for ads featuring the elected commissioner – which critics said were intended to raise his profile for a potential run for governor – and donated to charities with no connection to quakes, including the Skillz Athletic sports camp attended by his children.

SACRAMENTO — Sacramento County supervisors Tuesday approved a preliminary pact with the East Bay Municipal Utilities District that could end a decades-old dispute over American River water rights.

The county, the district, the city of Sacramento and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will spend six months working out details of the agreement to build and operate a joint pumping station to take water from the Sacramento River near Freeport.

The dispute dates to a 1970 federal agreement giving the East Bay district the right to take nearly 49 billion gallons of water annually from the American River for its 1.2 million customers. Environmental organizations, along with Sacramento officials, successfully fought the district with a series of lawsuits, claiming the diversion would hurt recreation and fishing.

Under the new agreement, the utility would pump up to 100 million gallons a day from the Sacramento River and divert it to the Folsom South Canal through a new pipeline.

Sacramento County would take up to 70 million gallons a day for the southern part of the county, and the city of Sacramento 10 million to 15 million gallons a day for residents in the southern part of the city.

The cost of the project will depend on size of the pipeline, said Keith Devore, the county’s water resources director. The county and city also will build a joint water treatment plant nearby, he said.

Environmentalists want to make sure the diversion doesn’t hurt the Sacramento River or the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in dry years, said Jim Jones, who filed the first lawsuit 27 years ago on behalf of the Save the American River Association.

“We have a lot of hard work ahead,” Jones said. However, he added, “I feel good about this.”

The agreement comes after eight months of talks. Details were hashed out during a meeting last month in the Washington, D.C., offices of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

The utility district board will consider the preliminary agreement at a Jan. 23 meeting.

SACRAMENTO — California declared another electricity emergency Tuesday as several plants fell short of natural gas and its two largest utilities edged perilously close to insolvency.

State power regulators declared a Stage 3 power alert, anticipating electricity reserves below 1.5 percent for the second time in less than a week.

Rolling blackouts were avoided after huge state pumps that move water from Northern California to the south were turned off temporarily, conserving enough electricity to power 600,000 homes, said Kellan Fluckiger, chief operating officer of the Independent System Operator.

But imports were running about half of what they were last week, when California narrowly avoided blackouts, Fluckiger said. Then, about 4,200 megawatts was coming into the system from elsewhere, mostly the Pacific Northwest.

On Tuesday, imports were running about 2,200 megawatts, he said. The Folsom-based ISO manages about 80 percent of the state’s electrical transmission lines.

In Sacramento, the Legislature pondered a rescue plan in which the state would buy electricity from wholesalers and sell it to utilities at a reduced rate, perhaps a fifth of the going market rate, under long-term contracts. An Assembly committee approved it Tuesday afternoon; the full Assembly was to consider it Tuesday night.

The legislative action came as Southern California Edison declared itself unable to pay hundreds of millions in wholesale electricity bills, and SoCal Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. took another hit on Wall Street.

SoCal Edison, which serves 11 million people, said it cannot pay $596 million in bills for wholesale energy and debt service, including $215 million to the California Power Exchange.

The Power Exchange was considering whether to make the utility buy its power elsewhere and an electricity supplier threatened to force SoCal Edison into bankruptcy if it failed to pay its bills.

The exchange, or “PX,” is the official clearinghouse of electrical power bought and sold in California. SoCal Edison’s decision gave the exchange, created by California’s 1996 deregulation law, the authority to seize Edison’s contracts to satisfy the debt.

The PX could take over Edison contracts and sell them if the utility failed to post an immediate sum, perhaps $1 billion, with the PX, exchange spokesman Jesus Arredondo said.

“They aren’t likely to do that if they don’t have the $215 million. So the scenario is that we begin the proceeding of determining what requirements for collateral we have,” Arredondo said. “We aren’t taking over any power plants, but they do have contracts.”

Arredondo said no decision had been made to take over any of Edison’s contracts or any other assets.

S&P said SoCal Edison’s delinquency also tainted PG&E. With just $500 million in cash left as of Jan. 10, PG&E faces due dates on bills totaling $1 billion during the first two weeks of February.

“The downgrades reflect the heightened probability to the utility’s imminent insolvency and the resulting negative financial implications for affiliated companies,” the credit-rating agency said of PG&E.

PG&E, restructured with the approval of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to insulate assets in the event of a bankruptcy, faces a $580 million bill on Feb. 1, a bill similar to that owed by SoCal Edison.

PG&E has about $500 million in cash on hand.

Between them, PG&E and SoCal Edison have lost at least $10 billion in wholesale energy costs that they have not been able to pass on to their customers because of a rate freeze imposed as the state phases in deregulation.

California’s electricity crisis began this spring after San Diego Gas and Electric Co., its rate freeze lifted, began passing on the increased costs of wholesale electricity to its 1.2 million customers, whose bills doubled and tripled.

The utility was the first to complete the transition to deregulation under the 1996 law, which took effect in January 1998.

Under deregulation, investor-owned monopoly utilities were required to sell of their power plants and buy energy on the open market.

The idea was to lower prices through competition, and have the utilities pass on those savings to customers.

But wholesale electricity prices rose dramatically since June, in part of because of a hot summer and a cold winter. In 1999, they averaged perhaps 3.5 cents a kilowatt. Now, they are running about 30 cents, and sometimes far higher.

State officials believe power producers exploited flaws in the market and charged huge prices for wholesale electricity.

Demand has remained high, supplies are strapped because no new power plants have been built in the state in a decade and imports are tight because others states are fighting over the power.

In addition, spiraling prices for natural gas are forcing power plants to raise their prices; most power plants are fired by natural gas.

Helped by strong investment gains, Intel reported income for the quarter ending Dec. 30 of $2.2 billion, or 32 cents per share. Excluding acquisition-related costs, income was $2.6 billion, or 38 cents per share, up from $2.4 billion, or 36 cents per share, in the year-ago period, the company said Tuesday.

Analysts were expecting comparable results this quarter of 37 cents per share, according to a survey by First Call/Thomson Financial.

Revenue for the quarter was $8.70 billion, compared to $8.21 billion in the year-ago period.

Shares of Intel finished regular trading down 75 cents to $31.38 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. In after-hours trading, shares crept up to $31.94.

“This was a year of record annual revenue and earnings; yet, slowing economic conditions impacted fourth-quarter growth and are causing near-term uncertainty,” said Craig R. Barrett, president and chief executive officer.

As a result, Intel officials said they expect first quarter revenue to decline by about 15 percent from the fourth quarter, though they maintained a positive outlook.

“We’re trying to invest to ensure that we can increase the differentiation from our competitors,” Intel chief financial officer Andy Bryant said in an interview. “But when the economy turns up, we’ll have the products that consumers will want.”

Intel, which serves as a bellwether of the general health of the personal computer industry, had joined other PC makers in December in lowering its earnings forecasts, saying poor PC sales worldwide would lead to flat growth for the fourth quarter.

“They’re going to be held up by the same downside of the economy that PC makers are struggling with,” said industry analyst Jack Gold of the Meta Group. “The issue is, what else do they (Intel) have on the horizon to make up for the downturn in PCs? The answer is: not a whole lot.”

Added analyst Jonathan Joseph of Salomon Smith Barney: “The outlook is fairly somber. But it does tell us something we already know – that the PC market is fairly weak.”

SANTA CLARA — The chief technology officer of leading handheld device maker Palm Inc. has resigned, company officials said Tuesday.

Bill Maggs resigned late Monday “to pursue outside opportunities related to the next phase of the Internet,” company spokeswoman Marlene Somsak said. “He’s helped us identify a terrific roadmap and exceptional technology choices.”

A replacement has not been named. Maggs has not made his specific plans public but will continue to consult with Palm for an undetermined period of time. The resignation comes as the Santa Clara-based company prepares to release a new operating system for personal digital assistants and increases efforts to license the Palm OS to other mobile device makers.

Unsold goods pile up, show economy is weaker

WASHINGTON — Inventories of unsold goods at U.S. companies piled up in November as sales fell for the second straight month, adding to mounting evidence of a slumping economy.

The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that stockpiles of goods on shelves and backlots nationwide rose by 0.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted $1.22 trillion in November. Sales dropped by 0.3 percent to $896.3 billion.

The inventory-to-sales ratio, which measures how long it would take businesses to exhaust their inventories at November’s sales pace, rose to 1.36 months, the highest since April 1999.

Number of TV stations owned by minorities drops

WASHINGTON — The number of television stations owned by minorities has dipped to the lowest level in at least a decade, while minority ownership of radio stations increased slightly in the past two years.

The Commerce Department report highlighted the impact that industry consolidation and limited access to investment capital have had on ownership diversity. Separately, a federal appeals court on Tuesday threw out rules requiring broadcasters and cable companies to widely disseminate information about their job opportunities in an effort to reach more minorities and women.

Companies, Feds team up to catch computer hackers

WASHINGTON — Nineteen of the nation’s top technology firms – including archrivals Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM – have teamed up with the federal government to catch hackers.

The competitors vowed to share intelligence with each other about product vulnerabilities and hacker trends in order to shore up public confidence in e-commerce and protect the over $7 billion in business-to-business revenue over the Internet.

NEW YORK — Investors awaiting the release of Intel’s earnings took some bets on blue chip stocks Tuesday, but otherwise traded cautiously in high-tech and Internet sectors.

When Intel released its results after the market closed, Wall Street’s reaction was muted. After reporting better-than-expected earnings but predicting tough months ahead, the chip maker’s stock held steady – as did PC makers Dell and Gateway.

Analysts said the reaction suggested that the market had already priced in the effect the decelerating economy would have on Intel’s price.

With fourth-quarter earnings reports beginning, Wall Street spent the session focused on earnings outlooks rather than specific quarterly results, which in many cases have already been factored into stock prices.

Pharmaceutical and manufacturing stocks advanced, while technology issues languished on concerns about what Intel’s earnings forecast would look like.

“We would expect to see investors rotate away from technology stocks, leading up to a major bellwether announcement like Intel’s,” said Matt Brown, head of equity management at Wilmington Trust. “The tone on technology has been negative for awhile. No one knows how deep this slowdown is going to be and Intel’s forecast may give us a better idea of what to expect.” But investors appeared unsure of how to react when Intel’s news finally came, sending shares as high

Intel traded up to $32 in after-hours trading, after finishing down 75 cents to $31.38. The chip maker’s fourth-quarter results beat analyst estimates by a penny, but the company warned that first-quarter revenues will be down 15 percent because of the soft economy and seasonal factors.

“Everyone knew that they were going to say the first quarter was going to be bad,” said Gary Kaltbaum, a technical analyst at JW Genesis. “All the bad news had already been built into Intel’s stock price. But there was no good news in this report to make the stock go up.”

Opinion

Editorials

The assumption that immigrants are a burden to California’s economy is challenged by a study that found poverty levels have declined among long-term foreign-born residents, researchers said Monday.

“Now that time has passed and they’re staying longer, they become more established,” said the study’s co-author, Dowell Myers, a demographics professor at the University of Southern California.

The researchers commented on the study in advance of its scheduled release Tuesday. The researchers used the censuses of 1970, 1980 and 1990, and the Current Population Survey of March 2000 to measure poverty rates over three decades.

The study documents a decline in poverty levels among California immigrants the longer they live in the state, the researchers said. Long-term residency and assimilation have contributed to more skilled workers, homeowners and drivers, Myers said.

The study, titled “Demographic Futures for California,” focused on California’s immigration patterns for the last 30 years because it has the nation’s largest immigrant population.

The 2000 Census found that 25.9 percent of Californians are foreign-born. Nationwide, there are about 28.3 million foreign-born residents, or one out of every 10 people.

“California is the bellwether for the rest of the nation,” Myers said.

Researchers say their findings could affect public policy decisions such as education,

health behavior, smoking, transportation, welfare and

home ownership.

The study challenges a common belief that immigrants in general lack skills and depend on welfare, said co-author John Pitkin from Analysis and Forecasting Inc. in Cambridge, Mass.

Myers said some of the impacts are evident in everyday life.

The housing demand has peaked as immigrants have moved out of apartments and shared rooms into their own homes.

And while new immigrants initially depend on public transit, many learn to drive, adding to the number of cars on California’s congested roadways.

The study also highlighted the need for education.

“California is totally dependent on the education levels of Latinos,” Myers said about the state work force. “If California wants to be high tech, it has to scale up to the future. Evidence shows there’s a real upward trend. It’s not as pessimistic as you think.”

The study also found that the children of immigrants are increasingly better educated than their parents, Myers said.

The research was funded by USC, the USC Tobacco Center and the Fannie Mae Foundation of Washington, D.C.

The authors planned to release the study Tuesday afternoon at a USC news conference.

The Federal Highway Administration on Friday picked a site for a bypass bridge to lift heavy traffic from the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River.

The agency submitted a final environmental report selecting Sugarloaf Mountain as the preferred of three alternatives, said Ken Davis and Nathan Banks, project engineers in the highway administration’s Phoenix office.

The move starts the clock on a 30-day comment period before the agency approves plans for a four-lane bridge above Hoover Dam.

The nearly $200 million arch, a quarter-mile downstream from the dam, would carry U.S. 93 connecting southern Nevada and northwestern Arizona.

After final approval and design, construction could begin in 2002 and take five years, Banks said.

All sides agree something needs to be done to relieve a perpetual conga line of tractor-trailers, motor homes and cars snaking through two-lane hairpin turns and crawling through camera-toting pedestrians.

The Sugarloaf route is the least expensive of three options that Banks said have been under study for more than 10 years. Alternate bridges at Gold Strike Canyon, one mile downstream from the dam, and Promontory Point, over Lake Mead

about 1,000 feet north of the dam, were rejected.

Fred Dexter, chairman of the Sierra Club’s Hoover Dam Bypass committee and a resident of nearby Boulder City, said he expects challenges will be lodged against the plan by the Feb. 20 deadline on legal, environmental, emotional and aesthetic grounds.

He said the Sierra Club is prepared to sue to stop project planning.

“We strongly support a Hoover Dam bypass,” Dexter said.

“It is absolutely necessary. But they’ve never given full study to the Laughlin-Bullhead alternative.”

He said a bridge on U.S. 95 between Laughlin and Bullhead City, Ariz., some 60 miles downstream from the dam, would be less expensive, take less time to build and pose less risk to the environment.

American Indian tribes in the area point to the cultural significance of the river to the earliest inhabitants of the arid southwest.

The highway administration says it received comments from 13 tribes.

Richard Arnold, executive director of the Indian Center in Las Vegas, has compared building on Sugarloaf Mountain to bulldozing a church or religious shrine.

The highway administration says the current road carries 11,500 vehicles a day and has an accident rate three times that of roads with similar volumes.

Trucks make up almost one in five of all traffic on the dam. The route has become a shipping lifeline in and out of fast-growing Las Vegas, 30 miles away.

The bridge would let authorities ban vehicles transporting explosives, radioactive material and flammable or caustic chemicals from the dam that forms Lake Mead, the area’s key drinking water reservoir.

A group of parents are brainstorming ways to keep more Berkeley High School students on campus for lunch by providing hot lunches and places to sit and eat.

They want benches, tables, gazebos and a temporary shelter in the main courtyard and are looking at the possibility of providing a mobile food preparation unit (also referred to as a “roach coach”) on campus.

The mobile food unit would be able to provide students with 400 lunches a day.

“With this little bit of space we want to serve as many students as possible,” said Gail Keleman, chair of the Berkeley High School Master Plan and Land Use Committee.

The food unit could take up to four months to be approved, according to Dana Richards, a teacher at the school who serves on the committee.

Eventually, the committee wants to develop the food court concept at the high school because downtown merchants have long-complained of up to 3,300 students infiltrating their businesses during lunch.

The school has been without a cafeteria since it was damaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. The school does have a food facility – referred to as “Elsie’s Shack” – for making lunches for low-income students. But that facility is slated for demolition as part of $20 million in improvements to the school. A few members of the committee have also suggested taking the equipment and constructing a new permanent facility instead of paying up to $80,000 for the temporary facility. Another suggestion is to move some food services into the “Good Food Café,” a state-of-the-art kitchen now used by children with special needs to learn valuable skills and provide meals for campus staff.

All of these suggestions are still early in the planning stages but they are part of the work the committee has focused on for the past four years. Since 1996, Keleman said the Berkeley High School Master Plan and Land-use committee has looked at ways to create a uniform look for campus improvements. Before then, Keleman said many improvements were piecemeal projects with no unifying theme.

“We would get a tomato plant next to a Redwood tree. It was a mish-mash of things,” she said. “We wanted to group so we didn’t end up with benches all over the place and Redwood Trees next to fruit trees.”

Steve Goldstone, named interim superintendent of the Berkeley Unified School District Wednesday night, said he may be interested in becoming the full-time superintendent even though he came out of retirement to take the job.

“That door is being kept open by the district,” he said. “We’ll see if there’s a fit.”

Goldstone’s three page resume includes 20 years as superintendent at five school districts throughout California.

He began his career as a teacher at the Santa Monica and Los Angeles Unified School Districts in 1964.

Most recently, he served five years as superintendent in the Vallejo City Unified School District. Goldstone, 62, retired in August last year.

District officials have been looking for a replacement for current superintendent Jack McLaughlin after he accepted a position as Nevada’s state superintendent of schools Dec. 13.

Mclaughlin will hand his office keys to Goldstone at the end of this month.

Goldstone said his first order of business will be to learn more about the needs of the people in the school district.

“It’s always been my style to have a lot of meetings so we can share our ideas,” he said.

“I have a slogan I like to follow and that’s, ‘Working together for the success of all students.’ ”

The trial of a San Francisco police officer charged with assaulting a Berkeley woman during a domestic incident during which he allegedly bound her hands with a nylon strap began in Oakland Superior Court Tuesday, as prosecution and defense lawyers met privately with the judge to discuss evidence.

Michael Cardoza, the lawyer for 52-year-old San Francisco motorcycle officer James McKeever, said Tuesday he would ask Oakland Superior Court Judge Carlos G. Ynostroza to exclude evidence that McKeever was involved in a separate assault in Texas shortly after the alleged Berkeley incident.

McKeever was arrested at a home on Seventh Street in west Berkeley in August after police responding to a 911 call discovered McKeever’s one-time girlfriend with a broken tooth and her hands tied behind her back.

He was charged with battery and false imprisonment.

Two weeks later, McKeever was allegedly involved in a separate assault on his stepdaughter at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. He was charged with felony assault on a child by Texas authorities.

Cardoza said the Texas incident was not relevant to the trial set to begin in Oakland.

"There’s no reason to introduce it but to prejudice the jury," Cardoza said. "What does it have to do with this?"

Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Tara Desautels declined to comment on the case Tuesday, citing the possibility that the court might impose a gag order on the jury.

Fort Worth attorney Carole Kerr, who is representing McKeever in the Texas case, did not return calls.

The DA is expected to argue that testimony about the Texas incident is relevant and should not be kept from the jury.

Although the 36-year-old, woman who police say was assaulted by McKeever, appeared in Berkeley Superior Court for a hearing in the case in October, her name has been deleted from court documents to protect her privacy.

The woman told the Daily Planet in October that she is active in Berkeley politics and community affairs.

She said she and McKeever, who is married, have had an on-and-off relationship for several years.

Cardoza said he intends to show that the alleged victim in the Berkeley incident was actually responsible for the altercation that led to the charges against McKeever.

"I’ve got two witnesses that say this woman is emotionally unbalanced, that she has attacked McKeever on other occasions," he said.

McKeever told Berkeley police after his arrest that the woman slapped and kicked him, and he tried to restrain her. According to a police report, McKeever outweighs the woman by about 100 pounds and is nearly a foot taller than her.

McKeever, who has served on the San Francisco police force for 26 years, was suspended by Chief of Police Fred Lau in September pending an investigation by the Police Commission into the incidents. McKeever was reinstated but has been reassigned to a desk job.

Dressed in a black suit, McKeever waited alone in an otherwise deserted sixth floor courtroom in downtown Oakland Tuesday morning, while lawyers for the defense and prosecution met in the judge’s chambers.

Lawyers in the case said they expect to begin picking a jury Tuesday and that testimony in the case would begin later this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday.